FAMILY TRAPPINGS

by Barbara Ucko ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 24, 1985

At the heart of this first novel is an engaging and believable pair, Clare and Martin Fishbein, and the book's greatest strength is its portrait of them as individuals--maddening, fallible, endearing. It is in its larger novelistic ambitions that the book disappoints. The Fishbeins have moved from Chicago to Luther, South Carolina, where Clare has gotten a job supervising a department of six men at the Femmalin chemical plant. Her new job is to develop an elastic for women's undergarments that will support but not bind--an apt metaphor for Clare's personal quest in the course of the novel: to free herself from the family ties that constrain her (those between her and her parents and younger sister), and to replace them with a resilient, trustworthy bond with Martin. But the main problem is that engaging, complex Clare is not given worthy opponents in her family. Her father is so weak, her mother so heartless and vindictive, and her sister (the brilliant scientist) so hapless as to be, if not incredible, then uninteresting, two-dimensional. Instead of taking any satisfaction in Clare's victory over their domination, the reader loses respect for her for allowing herself to be tyrannized in the first place by such obvious set-ups. And the plotting of the novel, too, is lackadaisical, contributing to a gradual waning of dramatic energy. Clare's metamorphosis from rising managerial woman to stay-at-home wife and mother occurs with puzzling rapidity and ease. Perhaps this is meant to suggest that Clare is moving out of petty competition and into the arena where she will truly test herself: building a family and a life of her own--but if this is so, the book barely hints at it, leaving the reader with the impression that Clare is a bit feckless. Overall, Ucko writes intelligently and with humor, but this is an only fair to middling book.

Pub Date: July 24, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION