And that’s just half of the characters and stories weaving around this novel. This is where Dizzying Heights breaks down: it over-reaches and ends up being confusing to the reader. I was referring to the list of “Dramatis Personae” in the front of the book well past the 100-page mark. There are several people and story lines that could have been cut entirely with no detriment to the novel: there’s no need for the decadent and past-his-prime cokehead rock star and the restaurateur who gets away with serving past-its-prime fish entrees by having great salads and an excellent wine cellar, for example; even toilet-heir Peyton Post could have been edited out easily.
I can imagine author Bruce Ducker, who lived in Aspen for many years, gleefully listing all the Aspen stereotypes he wanted to parody and then being unable to cull the herd. Ducker just tries a little too hard to be clever. He’s not as deft as Carl Hiaasen in this character-heavy environmental/caper genre, thus the over-reaching.
That being said, the book is fun. Ducker does a great job of painting a picture of Aspen for us, with its over-the-top social strata – the old riche, the nouveau riche, the new nouveau riche and all the hoi polloi who serve them in order to live. Dizzying Heights breaks no new ground but is definitely entertaining, a good beach read if you can keep track of who’s who.
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