A moving and sincere reflection on what it truly means to become a family.
That infamous village that's needed to raise a child comes to fruition when a brilliant researcher creates a communal parenting experiment.
This is another bittersweet story about messed-up families from the talented Wilson (The Family Fang, 2011, etc.) but one in which the author stays a bit more grounded, keeping an atmosphere of emotional authenticity that rings true. Wilson’s muse is Izzy Poole, a just-graduated high schooler with a particular talent for barbecuing meat, who finds herself in dire straits. She’s pregnant with her emotionally disturbed art teacher’s baby and estranged from her father. After the art teacher commits suicide, Izzy is confronted with a very odd proposal from a researcher with an agenda. At the behest of a retail mogul, Dr. Preston Grind is determined to create a model in which 10 children are raised by a commune of parents, with no child knowing who their biological parents are. We quickly learn that the doctor is actually a hot mess, raised by two famous child psychologists who subjected their child to constant and unexpected stress throughout his upbringing. Grind may have inherited their brilliance but he’s also a cutter with borderline PTSD. Torn between the experiment and raising her son, Cap, alone, Izzy decides to go along with Grind’s complex scheme. “She would make it work,” Wilson writes. “Izzy would find tiny ways to make herself essential, to succeed when it seemed so unlikely. Ten years, that’s what she had. She would mine every essential element out of these ten years and she would be transformed.” The second half of the novel checks in on this “Infinite Family Project” every year or two, as Wilson delves into the drama and tensions inherent in this strange aquarium. Relationships begin to splinter, even as Izzy becomes fundamentally reliant on the group. “We’re a family,” Grind says, near the end. “An imperfect one.”
A moving and sincere reflection on what it truly means to become a family.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-245032-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
Love, grief, and forgiveness illuminate this compelling summer read.
Throughout college, Evvie, Maggie, and Topher were the best of friends. But time and the mistakes that come with simply being human may strain their love to the breaking point.
The daughter of a hardworking Jamaican immigrant and an abusive American banker, Evvie Williams grew up a child actor, ironically starring as an adorable daughter in The Perfect Family. That’s when her struggles with weight began, as her mother put her on her first diet at age 7. After her father hit her mother one too many times, she and her mother pulled up stakes and moved to London. Years of yo-yo dieting later, she heads off to college, where she meets Maggie Hallwell, the redheaded only daughter in a raucous and somewhat posh family from Sussex. They discover Topher, the son of the impossibly glamorous Joan Winthrop, while shopping for dorm furniture. Immediately smitten with each other, the three are inseparable, even rooming together for the last years of college. Of course, there’s also Evil Ben, so dubbed because he never smiled at Evvie, even when she began bartending at the same local pub. Nonetheless, Maggie falls head over heels in love with Ben at first sight. Green (The Sunshine Sisters, 2017, etc.) masterfully switches from one character's perspective to another's, devastatingly sketching their successes, showing how they're riddled with pain, and setting them on a collision course. Maggie eventually marries her beloved Ben, yet their seemingly perfect marriage is fractured by a lack of children and Ben’s catastrophic drinking, which Maggie desperately tries to keep secret. Topher embarks on a successful acting career and finds love. Yet he’s also struggling with a secret about his past. Evvie has not only lived a glamorous life as a supermodel, but also raised her son, Jack. And she, too, hides a few secrets. Thirty years later, the friends reunite, but one of their secrets threatens to destroy everything.
Love, grief, and forgiveness illuminate this compelling summer read.Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-58334-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
While there’s little new ground broken, the missing child scenario, when done reasonably well, as it is here, is a reliable...
The search for a missing boy is seen through the split perspective of his frantic mother and the police detective determined to solve the case, despite its deleterious effect on his psychological health.
Newly divorced photographer mum Rachel Jenner thought she was giving her 8-year-old son, Ben Finch, a bit of freedom when she let him run ahead during a walk in a Bristol park. But when Ben vanishes, Rachel immediately blames herself, and the media is quick to paint her as a neglectful parent, too. Macmillan, in her debut, leans a bit hard on the “bad mother” trope, one that’s been well-trodden in recent fiction, but she creates a compellingly complex investigator in DI Jim Clemo. The narrative is split not only between Rachel's and Clemo’s perspectives, but also Clemo’s post-investigation sessions with a department-ordered shrink, indicating that however the Finch investigation turned out, it wasn’t pretty. As Rachel waits and frets at home, often in the company of her high-achieving older sister, Nicky, who clearly knows more than she lets on, Clemo and his fellow officers, including his secret girlfriend, DC Emma Zhang, whom he perhaps unwisely recommended as Family Liaison Officer for the case, try to piece together a case from a dearth of physical evidence. The requisite family secrets come to light, though Macmillan gets credit for some truly clever red herrings.
While there’s little new ground broken, the missing child scenario, when done reasonably well, as it is here, is a reliable hook, and with Macmillan’s taut pacing, this is an engaging debut.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-241386-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
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