The Development - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
From one of our most celebrated masters, a touching, comic, deeply humane collection of linked stories about surprising developments in a gated community

"I find myself inclined to set down for whomever, before my memory goes kaput altogether, some account of our little community, in particular of what Margie and I consider to have been its most interesting hour: the summer of the Peeping Tom."

Something has disturbed the comfortably retired denizens of a pristine Florida-style gated community in Chesapeake Bay country. In the dawn of the new millennium and the evening of their lives, these empty nesters discover that their tidy enclave can be as colorful, shocking, and surreal as any of John Barth's fictional locales. From the high jinks of a toga party to marital infidelities, a baffling suicide pact, and the sudden, apocalyptic destruction of the short-lived development, Barth brings mordant humor and compassion to the lives of characters we all know well. From "one of the most prodigally gifted comic novelists writing in English today" (Newsweek), The Development is John Barth at his most accessible and sympathetic best.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars

Life and death behind the gates October 23, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

John Barth's curious collection of loosely-related stories starts off with a terrific one....a supposed peeping tom who has infiltrated the security of a gated community. Or has he? Is he one of them? The couples introduced here are diverse, initially likeable and have character potential. Unfortunately, "The Development" fails simply, well, to develop. In the end, it's a meandering trip down not-so-good memory lane, where the reader needs a playbill and a map to chart its course.

Barth writes with great dashes of color but his characters take on as much interest as a cocktail party conversation, about which one story here is devoted. The author's narrative style lacks force, giving this cast little chance for empathy. Indeed, when the fate of one couple lies hanging in the balance early on and is then resolved, I was more than happy to see these two largely disappear.

The ostensible purpose of a community with gates is to keep outsiders out, but Barth clearly convinces us that the truer reason is to keep its residents inside...and allow them to become more insular. Unfortunately, "The Development" doesn't live up to the expectations of what a collection of people living in this type of arrangement could achieve on the fictitious page.

2 out of 5 stars

Unmet Expectations October 12, 2008
1 out of 6 found this review helpful

The author is obviously a world-renowned craftsman and journeyman raconteur who has garnered a multitude of well-deserved literary awards. The milieu of his plot in this novel is also well-chosen and one that intersts me. Nonetheless, I found the writing less than inspiring and somewat lacking in punch. Dense, sluggish and slow moving are other attributes that come to mind. I haven't really read any at-length reviews of this book, and therefore look forward to hearing the opinions of other readers.

5 out of 5 stars

A playful flirtation with the Grim Reaper October 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

THE DEVELOPMENT is a collection of nine short stories that are connected (sufficiently so that it is fair to regard the book as a novel) by setting, characters, and plot developments. The setting is a planned community on Maryland's Eastern Shore, whose residents are upper-middle class WASPs (with a few Catholics and Jews) living the later or last chapters of their lives, most of whom understandably are pre-occupied with the various manifestations of decrepitude and with death. Yet the novel is by no means a downer. It is so infused with Barth's typical good humor and gentle irony, his linguistic playfulness, and his clever digressions into "meta-fiction" that it becomes an entertainment. THE DEVELOPMENT also features Barth's typical fascination with, and telescoping examination of, matters of history/time and geography/space. In this regard, the last paragraph is particularly noteworthy, and poignant, bearing as it does hints of the author's valediction.

Sad to think that this might well be the last work from Barth, who now is 78 (although in a sense, as Barth I think would concur, what is sad about the inevitable?). THE DEVELOPMENT may not be a major work of American fiction, on the plane of "The Sot-Weed Factor" or "Lost in the Funhouse", but it still is worthwhile. As odd as it might seem to say about a work that constantly flirts with the Grim Reaper, I thoroughly enjoyed THE DEVELOPMENT.

5 out of 5 stars

Aging in place October 28, 2008
A humorous,bittersweet and affectionate look at the challenges of growing older in a (half) gated community. Barth at his perceptive best

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