A novel at various times to introduce us to the future of a peculiar American dream, in the style of the American Beauty film but with a deeper, blacker and more extended plot in time. We start by getting to know the Goldman from Baltimore and Goldman from Montclair families. The Baltimore have prospered more than the Montclairs. Marcus, the son of the Montclairs adores his cousin Hillel, admires his aunt Anita and idolizes his uncle Saúl.
Marcus spends the whole year looking forward to reuniting with his cousin in Baltimore during any vacation period. Enjoying that feeling of belonging to a model, prestigious and wealthy family becomes a heavy slab for him.
Under the auspices of that idyllic family nucleus, increased with the adoption of Woody, a troubled boy converted into that new home, the three boys agree to that eternal friendship typical of youth. During their idealistic years, the Goldman cousins enjoy their unbreakable pact, they are good guys who defend each other and always find good causes difficult to tackle.
The loss of Scott Neville, a sick little friend of a neighborhood family anticipates all the subsequent tragedy to come, "the Drama." The boy's sister joins the Goldman group, becomes one more. But the problem is that all three cousins love her. For his part, Gillian, the father of Alexandra and the late Scott, finds in the Goldman cousins a support to cope with the death of a son. They made their handicapped son feel alive, they encouraged him to live beyond his room and the medical assistance that made him prostrate to his bed. They allowed him to do that crazy thing for their state. Gillian's defense of the cousins led to her divorce from a mother who could not understand how the three Goldmans had turned Scott's pitiful existence into a full life, despite the fatal outcome.
Perfection, love, success, admiration, prosperity, ambition, tragedy. Sensations that anticipate the reasons for the Drama.
The Goldman cousins are growing, Alexandra continues to dazzle them all, but she has already chosen Marcus Goldman. The frustration of the other two cousins begins to be a latent reason for disagreement, never made explicit. Marcus feels like he has betrayed the group. And Woody and Hillel know themselves to be losers and betrayed.
In college, Woody confirms his worth as a professional athlete and Hillel stands out as a great law student. Egos begin to create edges in a friendship that, despite this, remains unbreakable, even if only in an essence of their souls, intoxicated by circumstances. The Goldman stepbrothers begin an underground battle while Marcus, a budding writer, tries to find his place among them.
The arrival at the University of the Goldman cousins represents a breaking point for everyone. Baltimore parents suffer from empty nest syndrome. The father, Saúl Goldman, envies Gillian, who seems to have usurped the parental rights of the boys thanks to their higher social and economic status and their contacts.
Such a sum of egos and ambitions leads to the Drama, in the most unexpected way, presented in brushstrokes in those comings and goings from the past to the present, a Drama that will take everything ahead as far as the Baltimore Goldmans are concerned.
In the end, Marcus Goldman, the writer, along with Alexandra, they are the only survivors of the band of those idealistic and extremely happy boys. He, Marcus, knows that he must turn the history of his cousins and of the Baltimore black on white in order to free himself from their shadows and recover Alexandra in the process; and thus perhaps, open a future without guilt. It is what has broken and longed for happiness, it must have a sublimation to leave it in the past, it needs a final repair.
This is the chronological structure of the book, although Joel Dicker it does not present it this way. As he did in "The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair", the comings and goings between present and past scenarios becomes a necessary constant to maintain the fascinating intrigue that a present of doubts, melancholy and a certain hope can explain. What was of the Baltimore Goldman is the mystery that drives the entire book, along with the present of a lonely Marcus Goldman that we need to know if he will come out of the past and find a way to get Alexandra back.
By the way, not even close to the second part of "The truth about the Harry Quebert case"Of that work, only the name of the main character and his job as a writer remain.
You can now buy The Baltimore Book, one of Joël Dicker's best novels, here:
