There's no shortage of niche writers in the Rich family. Father Frank writes pithy, controversial columns for the New York Times, and thanks to a well-received book of short humor pieces, younger brother Simon's been dubbed the "funny one." It's not strange, then, that Nathaniel Rich, a senior editor at the Paris Review, would try his hand at becoming the family's next literary superstar. But after reading his novel The Mayor's Tongue (Apr. 17, Riverhead), it's fair to wonder if the clan—or the canon—truly needs another writer in the family.

Part tribute to the Upper West Side and part love letter to Trieste, the book follows, on one end, young Eugene Brentani, an idealistic New Yorker looking for love in all the wrong places. His obsession with Constance Eakins, a revered, deep-thinking author, leads him to the elderly Abe Chisholm, a companion and unauthorized biographer to Eakins. When word leaks that Eakins is dead, Mr. Chisholm's daughter Sonia—who by this point has become the object of Eugene's affection—leaves for Italy on her father's behalf to confirm the news and subsequently disappears. Naturally, smitten boy-hero Eugene follows her, prepared to declare his undying love—a decision with catastrophic, if somewhat fantastical and overbaked, consequences. (For those keeping score in the battle of the Riches, so far we've got neither pithy nor funny.)

A complementary plot stands in as an unfortunate case of what happens when old men stop being polite and start getting real. A Mr. Schmitz, faced with the imminent death of his wife, feels betrayed and abandoned when his friend Mr. Rutherford secretly accepts a job as a food critic in Italy—you can just taste the Gold Bond left over from the hairy-knuckled backhand. But what's stronger than the connection between two old war buddies? Nothing, apparently, and they eventually reunite in Italy, Schmitz now a widower and Rutherford now a sickly stiff in need of Schmitz's care.

On a brighter note, the two narratives are interspersed throughout the novel seamlessly, dovetailing in and out in a precarious but astounding manner. The descriptions of Italy are also impressive—where else can you find grown men crying around every corner, women sleeping in grape vines, and true love fashioned in a matter of minutes? At its heart, this is a book about storytelling, and it feels like it's written for a very insular audience. Sure it's ambitious, strange, and playful, but let's not forget melodramatic, overblown, and borderline pretentious.