Bookreporter.com - THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE by Iain Banks

THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE
Iain Banks
MacAdam Cage Publishing
Fiction
ISBN: 9781596922716

Iain Banks has been publishing books in both the fiction/drama and science fiction genres since his controversial first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. During this time he has built quite an international following that is well-justified. His latest effort, THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE, finds him in fine form and very well may be his best novel to date.

The story begins with young renegade Alban McGill being sought out by his cousin, Fielding, who is seeking him on behalf of family matriarch Grandma Win. Alban's family, the Wopulds, have built a fortune on a board game called Empire! (which closely resembles Risk). Empire! has existed for nearly a century and undergone many incarnations during this time --- most recently, a popular video game version. The family had gone into business with an American game company called Spraint, which now owns 25% of the Wopuld Corporation. Fielding's goal is to find cousin Alban and bring him to the family estate at Garbadale for a meeting of the entire family to vote on whether or not they should sell off the remaining 75% of their company to the Spraint Corporation.

Alban has stayed away from his family for over nine months for a number of reasons --- disillusionment with the family business and avoidance of certain family members who constantly remind him of controversial events that occurred in his past being the main reasons for his self-imposed exile. Banks does a masterful job of flipping back and forth between the present and the past. In Alban's past, there is controversy over his birth (who exactly is his real father?) and whether or not his birth mother intended to abort him. He is also dealing with his mother's suicide and questions over the events that caused this.

The most explicit secret in Alban's past, however, is the summertime affair he had as a teenager with his cousin, Sophie, while staying at Grandma Win's Garbadale estate. Alban has never gotten over the affair or Sophie, and it has shaped him into the man he is today and defined all of his successive relationships (particularly with members of the opposite sex).

Banks keeps the reader anxiously turning the pages in a way that a great thriller might. The Wopuld family and their board game corporation at times reminded me of the Ewing family of TV's "Dallas." In this case, family matriarch and the most powerful member of the Wopuld Corporation board, Grandma Win, is the J.R. Ewing of the book. Alban and his cousin spend much of the novel traveling around Europe seeking out family members to encourage their attendance at Garbadale for both Grandma Win's birthday party and the voting on whether or not the family company should be sold to the American Spraint Corporation. Secretly, Alban is anxious to meet up with his cousin Sophie, who he has only seen once in the many years since their secret affair. What Alban does not plan on is the unveiling of certain secrets that shaped his past and may very well change his entire future.

It was a pleasure to read this novel. Banks provides us with well-drawn characters and enough drama to keep you guessing right up to the end. The revelations at the end of the book are both surprising and satisfying, and the depictions of the episodes in Alban's past are so vivid and engaging that they reminded me of Dickens's Ghost of Christmas Past segment in his classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Well done, Mr. Banks!

--- Reviewed by Ray Palen

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