The Company Man Review

I received a copy of Robert Jackson Bennett's The Company Man on April 16th and I finished it around 2:30 AM last night. That should tell you something about how good it is. Even though it's set in 1919 and 1920, the city of Evesden strongly reminded me of the underwater dystopia of Rapture from the video game Bioshock. Read on to hear more about this noir thriller with a sci-fi flair.

The year is 1919 and the McNaughton Corporation is the world's leading technological pioneer; they're so powerful that they managed to avert World War I by threatening to cut off shipments of their products: airships, etc. to the world powers. McNaughton is well on its way to becoming a country in its own right, but all is not well at home.

Situated on the edge of Puget Sound, the city of Evesden and the home of the McNaughton Corporation is a sprawling, corrupt, polluted mess. Here's where I was able to draw connections with Rapture and Bioshock. Both feature huge cities that grew up too fast and were founded by wealthy capitalists. Rapture has Andrew Ryan and Ryan Industries, and Evesden has the McNoughton Corporation. Reading Bennett's descriptions of the dying city and the plight of its poor, lower classes really brought to mind the leaking, underwater dystopia of Rapture. If only Evesden had Big Daddies...

Murders and newly formed unions threaten to tear Evesden apart from within, and McNoughton taps Cyril Hayes, a man with a murky position within the company, their wet work man, to investigate the unions. The lovely Samantha Fairbanks, a rising star within the company, is assigned to assist Hayes with his investigation. Rounding out the cast is Detective Garvey, a member of the Evesden Police Department and the only thing Hayes has that resembles a friend. While all three characters were interesting and had their flaws, I felt that Samantha was the weakest of the three, but it could be that the reader spends the least amount of time with her as a POV character.

Hayes is by far the most interesting character both because he has an alcohol and opium addiction, but also because he possesses some limited telepathic abilities. If he spends enough time with a person he is able to gain flashes of insight from their mind, and the connection only grows stronger the longer he spends with them. While his abilities give him a little bit of a sci-fi flair, his character is pretty much a troubled noir-style private eye--which I was fine with.

The plot takes a little while to get going, and The Company Man definitely wasn't as quick a read as Bennett's previous novel Mr. Shivers. It takes over 100 pages for the "trolley murders" mentioned in the back cover synopsis to occur, and even longer before the disparate threads begin to tie together. So even though it took a little while to get going, I was still entranced by the plot, and more specifically by the world Bennett created. I wanted to know more about this alternate history world where World War I didn't happen and technological marvels like communicators connected by quantum physics--the Siblings--exist well before they should. Sadly some of those aspects don't really get explored.

While 90% of the book conveyed a certain tone and atmosphere, the ending 10% took a turn for the sci-fi, and I can't say for sure whether or not it succeeded. The last few chapters felt a bit rushed and lacked substance. There was a certain important character that seemed to come out of nowhere, and maybe Hayes mentioned him in passing earlier on, but I couldn't remember if that happened or not. 

The novel's tone abruptly shifts from dark, oppressive urban noir toward something borderline preachy about how humanity, and all intelligent life, is destined to destroy itself by "overreaching." The social commentary came across as a little heavy handed. The very end--the last few pages--turn into something almost mystical and upbeat which didn't mesh with the previous four hundred or so pages, and the entire thing ends on a cliffhanger. When I read the last sentence I couldn't help but ask, "That's it?" I suppose the ending leaves room for a sequel if Bennett chooses to write it.

It's actually a credit--in a backwards way--to Bennett's abilities that I felt cheated by the ending. It means I wanted more. I didn't want the story to end, and I wanted to see what was going to happen to the characters and the city. Would they and it be saved or would they suffer an inevitable doom?

I highly recommend The Company Man for its atmosphere and setting. Hayes is a fascinating character and Detective Garvey's devotion to duty is admirable. The ending might leave you puzzled and scratching your heads, but don't let that stop you from enjoying the work as a whole. I can honestly say I haven't read anything quite like it. If a classic noir story, Bioshock, and a more sci-fi tale had a confused threesome, The Company Man would be the resulting baby of unknown paternity--you're not quite sure how to classify it, but you know it was entertaining and well worth the read.