Rating: 
Summary: Admiring Richard Cory
Review: "So on we worked, and waited for the light, / And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;" and then one day Warner Lutz decided to whack his wife about the head. A little paraphrase there of Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Richard Cory." Yes, the protagonist of this novel does admire the rich Richard Corys of the world. He's a low paid, bitter director of a non-profit foundation, and is surrounded by the rich members of its board. Yet every day he climbs into his dented Honda, and drives home to his tiny, rented town house, and is greeted there by his average wife, and average children (If I had written the book I would have been tempted to name them John and Jane Doe). These folks are not graduates of the ghetto, mind you; they both have college degrees, yet are going nowhere. His wife Megan at one point muses to herself that Warner is the singularly most negative person she ever met. Part of the reason he is negative is that he considers himself a modern day Job. He hates foundation work. A misspent grant has put his job in jeopardy, and his wife's job is also sort of iffy. The day care center considers his daughter to be slower than everyone else, and his infant son seems to cry an awful lot. One day someone sneaks up behind wife Megan at the art gallery where she works, and smashes her in the back of the head with a hammer. Did Warner do it? Surprisingly every one of his friends and relatives think he does. She survives, and life goes on. This novel, like Yates's Revolutionary Road studies the terminally bland suburban couple, a twosome that at most tolerate each other, because, after all, isn't life just a day to day dull burden? Why does a woman stay married to the most negative person she ever met? Why does he get so little enjoyment out of life? It's a reasonably interesting book about some characters that you hope will never become your neighbors. If you like reading about sad people in a sad marriage surrounded by equally sad in-laws, then by all means pick up a copy of Six Figures.
Rating: 
Summary: Read before it gets on Oprah's list
Review: A bright and shining book. The characters are sharp and meaningful from page one in this low mimetic version of "Turn Of The Century". I wasn't thrilled with Leebron's first book, but he's taken a staggering leap forward with his second.
Rating: 
Summary: Family of strangers
Review: A psychologically insightful novel about the limits to which we can ever know the truth about others--even our own families and lovers. Also a wonderful commentary on the lure of materialism and its effect on human relationships. A really great little book. The only problems I had with the book were when the narrative point of view shifted (for brief passages) to that of the 5-year-old daughter, Sophia. The language used to describe her ideas and observations was too adult-like, and not at all believeable.
Rating:
Summary: Class act
Review: A terrific read - ferociously gripping and almost painfully moving - but the best thing about this book is its acute dissection of class.
Rating: 
Summary: lifeless, who cares?
Review: an editor should have taken a hammer--the checkovian smoking gun in this flat novel--and smashed apart the manuscript; it reads like a well-crafted exercise from an mfa writers mill grad factory. the characters, the interior dialogue of the main character, who heads a non-profit foundation in the south, and is squeezed from all side--by his wife, job, two kids--is neither likable, or unlikeable. he's inert. this is a who cares kind of book. when his relatives show up and crowd into the story, the air goes out; i enjoy contemporary fiction--jon billman, thom jones, tom paine--but i want the characters to be more than talking heads for an author's attempt to grapple with societal and personal disintegration.
Rating:
Summary: You Won't Miss A Thing By Waiting For the TV Movie
Review: Had this been the novel promised on its dustjacket (that the protagonist is truly unsure of whether he did or did not attack his wife), I would have felt less cheated. Yes, it's a fast read-should make a great tv movie. But I didn't find it sufficiently psychologically compelling to make up for the shallowness of its plotting and its characterization.
Rating:
Summary: The Have-Nots
Review: He's no Tom Wolfe, but Fred Leebron offers some astute social commentary in his novel "Six Figures". It's a sullen and frustrating book, but nonetheless engrossing, and edged with a few keen observations about the nature of humans in the clutch of terminal prosperity. It works as a chronicle of a certain place and time--in the this case, Charlotte, North Carolina during the height of the internet gold rush--but it remains questionable whether its premises have relevance outside of this narrow literary theater. Warner Lutz is an unpleasant fellow from the start, though he often manages to make the reader feel as sorry for him as he does for himself. Wracked by feelings of inadequacy and yearning for the trappings of the good life he sees in abundance all around him, he labors in his chosen field, not-for-profit, with increasing amounts of ambivalence and bitterness. Leebron is at his best when chronicling the suffocating day to day survival struggles of Warner and his wife Megan. Wave after wave of minutiae--diaper changes, feedings, car repairs, air-conditioner breakdowns--keeps crashing down on them with such relentless regularity that drowning seems inevitable. And something like that happens. Megan is found in the art gallery where she works, unconscious from a series of vicious hammer blows. Warner is the chief suspect. The drama that unfolds forces an examination of three families and the hidden guilts which have corroded them from the inside for decades. The story resolves itself satisfactorily, though not drawing real conclusions about Warner's hopes for redemption or happiness. The "did-he-do-it" aspect of the story is hardly the stuff of Agatha Christie, but that's probably not the point. In the end we see that sometimes people need a crucible, some event or revelation, to make them see what was in front of their faces all along.
Rating:
Summary: The Have-Nots
Review: He's no Tom Wolfe, but Fred Leebron offers some astute social commentary in his novel "Six Figures". It's a sullen and frustrating book, but nonetheless engrossing, and edged with a few keen observations about the nature of humans in the clutch of terminal prosperity. It works as a chronicle of a certain place and time--in the this case, Charlotte, North Carolina during the height of the internet gold rush--but it remains questionable whether its premises have relevance outside of this narrow literary theater. Warner Lutz is an unpleasant fellow from the start, though he often manages to make the reader feel as sorry for him as he does for himself. Wracked by feelings of inadequacy and yearning for the trappings of the good life he sees in abundance all around him, he labors in his chosen field, not-for-profit, with increasing amounts of ambivalence and bitterness. Leebron is at his best when chronicling the suffocating day to day survival struggles of Warner and his wife Megan. Wave after wave of minutiae--diaper changes, feedings, car repairs, air-conditioner breakdowns--keeps crashing down on them with such relentless regularity that drowning seems inevitable. And something like that happens. Megan is found in the art gallery where she works, unconscious from a series of vicious hammer blows. Warner is the chief suspect. The drama that unfolds forces an examination of three families and the hidden guilts which have corroded them from the inside for decades. The story resolves itself satisfactorily, though not drawing real conclusions about Warner's hopes for redemption or happiness. The "did-he-do-it" aspect of the story is hardly the stuff of Agatha Christie, but that's probably not the point. In the end we see that sometimes people need a crucible, some event or revelation, to make them see what was in front of their faces all along.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping and relentless
Review: I picked up this book before bedtime, expecting to read a chapter or two and followed the luckless Lutz family all the way to the final page. Leebron's swift moving and understated style leaves you with an uneasy uncertainty right up to the end. Could Warner have attacked his wife? Did she betray him earlier with a family friend? Will they find a true new beginning in a new place or will their doubts follow them north? Do Megan and Warner stay together out of loyalty or inertia? And, to echo the mother-in-law does anyone really know anyone? An intense and unnerving book - just don't give it to anyone for a wedding gift. Six Figures really makes you think twice about this "Till death do we part" thing.
Rating:
Summary: Great story, great writing
Review: I read this book in one sitting (okay, two--I took a break to watch The Sopranos). Anyway, SIX FIGURES is a wonderful, fast read. Leebron's prose is sharp and his story is compelling. Warner Lutz (the main character) is an Everyman caught in the trap of career and marriage; he wants both--maybe. When his wife is the victim of violent crime, everybody--and even Warner himself--wonders if he was capable of the crime. And was he? Ah, for that you have to read the book.
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