In Hill’s debut, members of a troubled family converge to celebrate a milestone, with unexpected results.
Rheumatologist Abe Green loves sailing, but his wife, Cassandra, a sculptor, does not. When the couple and their daughter Elizabeth, newly accepted to Harvard, go sailing one day in San Francisco Bay, Abe reveals during an argument that he knows about Cassandra’s affair with a gallery owner, then leaps from the boat and swims away. Eight years later and divorced, Cassandra and her siblings, Howie and Mary, gather at their parents’ home in Maryland to celebrate their father’s 80th birthday; Elizabeth, in her final year of medical school, joins them and brings her boyfriend, Kyle, to meet her grandparents. Howard and Eunice Fabricant live above the family-owned funeral home and have raised their three children over the rooms where corpses await final preparations. On the eve of the big party, tragedy strikes, and instead of birthday festivities, the family prepares for a funeral for one of their own. As Cassandra deals with her grief, she recalls moments that have defined her life: both her fascination with dead bodies and her feelings of repulsion; her rejection of her mother’s desire that she one day assume the reins of the family business; the initial heady feelings of love for her former husband and their increasing alienation—emotions both Abe and Cassandra explore through a haze of marijuana when he shows up for the funeral. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s pain causes her to push Kyle away and question their relationship. Although the author’s early prose is a bit florid, as the story progresses the writing becomes more subdued and more suited to the multifaceted study. Hill has produced an unusual retrospective of a family torn apart by divorce and infidelity and so keenly affected by the immediate events in their lives that they are only barely aware of what’s transpiring around them, namely Hurricane Katrina’s ravaging of the Gulf Coast.
A bleak and disturbing story but one that offers a glimmer of hope.Pub Date: July 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1032-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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BOOK REVIEW
When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus run over a longtime acquaintance of hers—Barbara Baker, a woman she doesn't like very much—it's only the beginning of the shake-ups to come in her life and the lives of those she loves.
Astrid has been tootling along contentedly in the Hudson Valley town of Clapham, New York, a 68-year-old widow with three grown children. After many years of singlehood since her husband died, she's been quietly seeing Birdie Gonzalez, her hairdresser, for the past two years, and after Barbara's death she determines to tell her children about the relationship: "There was no time to waste, not in this life. There were always more school buses." Elliot, her oldest, who's in real estate, lives in Clapham with his wife, Wendy, who's Chinese American, and their twins toddlers, Aidan and Zachary, who are "such hellions that only a fool would willingly ask for more." Astrid's daughter, Porter, owns a nearby farm producing artisanal goat cheese and has just gotten pregnant through a sperm bank while having an affair with her married high school boyfriend. Nicky, the youngest Strick, is disconcertingly famous for having appeared in an era-defining movie when he was younger and now lives in Brooklyn with his French wife, Juliette, and their daughter, Cecelia, who's being shipped up to live with Astrid for a while after her friend got mixed up with a pedophile she met online. As always, Straub (Modern Lovers, 2016, etc.) draws her characters warmly, making them appealing in their self-centeredness and generosity, their insecurity and hope. The cast is realistically diverse, though in most ways it's fairly superficial; the fact that Birdie is Latina or Porter's obstetrician is African American doesn't have much impact on the story or their characters. Cecelia's new friend, August, wants to make the transition to Robin; that storyline gets more attention, with the two middle schoolers supporting each other through challenging times. The Stricks worry about work, money, sex, and gossip; Straub has a sharp eye for her characters' foibles and the details of their liberal, upper-middle-class milieu.
Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-59463-469-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | LITERARY FICTION
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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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