Myerson follows up her acclaimed debut (Sleepwalking, 1995) with a similarly detailed study of family distress and dysfunction- -but this time there's a wild card: An unbalanced evangelist who inserts himself into the family's unstable dynamic, with catastrophic consequences. Frank Chapman is a bloody, sorry mess when Donna, her lover Will, and her sister Gayle find him semiconscious in a London park. The three get him to the hospital where Gayle works; and as the old widower recovers, she is both attracted to him and repelled; Inexplicably, he knows all about lovely Donna's twisted spine, which makes every day a painful trial for her, and he's certain that he can cure her. In time, Gayle is persuaded to let him try, and when Will is brought around too, Donna agrees to give it a shot. The faith healing works, and overnight Donna finds a new lust for life; she can't bring herself, however, to feel grateful to the unwashed, bizarre old man who made it possible. Gayle and Will visit Frank regularly to show their gratitude, even though they also find him difficult; as time passes, the two begin to take pleasure in each other's company, while Will and Donna become ever more estranged. During a family seaside vacation, complete with the sisters' mum, their brother Simon (a shiftless sponger with an unnatural affection for Gayle), and Frank, Gayle and Will's repressed passions emerge; they start an affair that continues back in London, even after Donna becomes pregnant. Frank, cut loose and left to fend for himself, festers in his own dark passions and memories, until a chance encounter with Will turns him from a healer for Jesus into an Old Testament avenger. Honest characterization and a flair for exposing family failings work as well here as before—and even if the portrayal of the outsider ultimately becomes heavy-handed, Myerson is clearly adept at chronicling the wrenching doubts at work in even the most intimate relations.
Pub Date: June 10, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-47507-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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