The Dakota Winters

October 1, 2018
Barbash’s spirited latest revolves around a family that lives in the Dakota, the Upper West Side apartment building where Rosemary’s Baby was set and outside of which John Lennon was assassinated. Here, in 1980, 23-year-old Anton Winter is just back from a stint with the Peace Corps in Africa, where he contracted malaria. While recovering, he works for Teddy Kennedy’s presidential campaign (Anton’s mother is friends with Teddy’s wife); goes sailing with his neighbor, John Lennon; gets a job as a busboy at a restaurant in Central Park; romances an English journalist; and—most importantly—helps his father, Buddy Winter, a famous TV talk show host (think Dick Cavett) who had a nervous breakdown two years ago and walked off his show, attempt a comeback. Barbash (The Last Good Chance) seamlessly mixes real-life celebrities into his fictitious narrative. All the backstage show business details ring true, as do the author’s exhaustingly encyclopedic cultural references for 1980. Though the central relationship between Anton and his father barely strikes any sparks, the book is packed with diverting anecdotes and a beguiling cast, making for an immensely entertaining novel.

October 1, 2018
It's 1980, and a young man is reckoning with his famous father's breakdown with a little help from his New York City neighbor John Lennon.If you know anything about Lennon and 1980, you already know the ending of Barbash's second novel (Stay Up With Me, 2013, etc.). But that knowledge only heightens the bittersweet, nostalgic mood that Barbash ably conjures here; the book is suffused with warm memories of punk clubs, the "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic hockey team, young romance, and the A-list residents at the storied Dakota apartments. The narrator, Anton, is the son of Buddy Winter, a talk show host in the Tom Snyder/Dick Cavett vein who scorched his reputation by having an on-air meltdown and storming off the set. Buddy is considering his options for a comeback (PBS? A big-three network? A newfangled cable channel?), and Anton is eager to assist, though ultimately the novel is concerned with how much we need to escape our parents' shadows. Anton's guide for managing that is Lennon, the fellow Dakota resident and former Beatle with whom he forms an unlikely friendship. Their scenes together provide the novel's most charming moments, as Anton gives Lennon sailing lessons off Cold Spring Harbor and serves as a sounding board as he writes songs in Bermuda. Barbash convincingly imagines Lennon's easy, sardonic humor while he helps the young man learn how to be confident without being star-struck. The downside is that those scenes throw the rest of the narrative a bit off-balance. Anton's siblings and love interests rarely feel like more than casual walk-on roles; Anton's mother, stumping for Ted Kennedy's failed presidential bid, plays only a slightly more substantial one.Pleasurably endearing for anybody with a soft spot for pop culture, Annie Hall-era Manhattan, and 20-somethingdom at its most freewheeling.

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Starred review from October 1, 2018
The punning title of Barbash's fleet-footed novel is a key to the wit propelling this brain-whirring tale of the pitiless spotlight of fame, hard-won comebacks, and father-son dynamics. The Dakota depicted here is not a western state but, rather, the legendary New York City apartment building, home to such stars as Lauren Bacall and Boris Karloff, and, in Barbash's imaginative variation, the quick-witted Winter family. Buddy Winter was a beloved TV talk-show host until he went to pieces on the air. Anton Winter, the elder of Buddy's two sons, narrates with Salingeresque concision and ruefulness. Back home in late 1979, after a Peace Corps stint and a grim bout with malaria, Anton is drawn into his father's quest for a new show. As he reluctantly considers how much Buddy relies on him and offers delectable behind-the-scenes talk-show revelations, Anton also becomes an agent for creative renewal for their friend and neighbor John Lennon. Drolly observant, Anton describes the Lennon fans swarming the Dakota, the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, his astute mother's part in Ted Kennedy's presidential campaign, the simultaneous rise of crime and gentrification, a wild sea adventure with John, and Lennon's tragic murder. Punctuated by clever dialogue and crisp social critiques, Barbash's incisive, funny, and poignant portrait of talented people and a city in flux illuminates the risks of celebrity and the struggle to become one's true self.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2018

In fall 1979, 23-year-old Anton Winter leaves his Peace Corps assignment in Africa to recover from a near-fatal bout of malaria at his family's apartment in the Dakota, also home to John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and a host of other well-connected New Yorkers. Anton's father, Buddy, is on the mend after a spectacular on-air nervous breakdown that deep-sixed his successful nine-year career as a brilliantly funny late-night talk show host. Buddy looks to Anton to help him craft a comeback, relying on Anton's skillful navigation of the entertainment waters even as nervous caution about Buddy's plan dogs network executives and Buddy's wife and other two children. For the next year, Buddy's dependence on Anton intensifies just as his son's restless need to forge his own life is fueled by a near-disastrous sea voyage with Lennon, who is on fire with a renewed creative streak, a fascinating and tragic reminder that his murder is just months away. VERDICT Barbash (The Last Good Chance) has written a beautiful, evocative novel of family devotion, celebrity, downfall, and survival, framed by the political and cultural upheavals of America on the cusp of a new decade. Irresistibly tender. [See Prepub Alert, 6/21/18.]--Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2018

To recover from the malaria he contracted during Peace Corps service, Anton returns home to (of all places) New York City's gilded Dakota apartment building, where he gets caught up in the efforts of his father, late-night host Buddy Winter, to reignite a cooling career. At first glance beautifully written, and Barbash (The Last Good Chance; Stay Up with Me) is an award winner. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.