Review: In the Land of the Living by Austin Ratner

In the Land of the Living by Austin Ratner is about fathers,sons and brothers and their complicated relationships. The Auberon men are particularly complicated and there is a darkness to their relationships with each other. The patriarch, Isidore, loses his mother at a young age and suffers at the hand of his demanding, grieving father. He vows to escape his unhappy childhood and to be successful - he makes good on that vow when he attends Harvard and completes medical school. When he has his own two sons, Leo and Mack, Isidore hopes to give them all he never got from his own father. But he is a product of his own upbringing and has limitations which can be seen as his sons grow into young men. Leo and Mack's relationship with each other is also damaged and they try to repair it on a cross country trip. Can the youngest generation break the cycle of dysfunction inherent in this family?

 This story is told in three sections. First is Isidore's story including his difficult upbringing with a distant, difficult father and his ultimate triumph with graduation from medical school after much hard work and perseverance. There is a hopefulness to this section as we see Isidore overcome a difficult childhood and make his dreams become a reality. The second section focuses on Isidore's own family when he marries and has two sons of his own - Leo and Mack. Leo idolizes his father and respects all he had to overcome to give them the lives they have.  Unfortunately, this becomes a set-up for Leo as he hero-worships his father and can never live up to his example or standards. Leo suffers from depression and has difficulty relating to people - even his own brother, Mack. The brothers' relationship is damaged and complicated by losses they have experienced. In the third part of the story, the brothers take a road trip in a last ditch effort to repair their relationship.

My Thoughts
This dark novel is intelligently written and I often found myself reviewing passages and being impressed by the way the words had been put together. The characters, however, are not always likable and that created a distance for me as I read the book. I did cheer for Isidore and felt hopeful seeing him overcome his difficult childhood; I also felt pathos for Leo as I watched him become trapped in a dysfunctional cycle that had been imposed on him by his family. At the same time, however, Leo is a difficult character to like. This is a brilliant design by the author - he is able to make the reader feel discomfort with Leo in the same way that those around Leo in the novel feel about him. All in all, I enjoyed the excellent writing and admired how the author laid out complex family relationships and showed how dysfunction extends through the generations and can be difficult to escape.

For more reviews, please check out others on the TLC Tour .

Review: Commencement by J.Courtney Sullivan

In Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, we meet Celia, Bree, April and Sally as they start their first year at Smith College. The young women are dorm mates and, although they come very different backgrounds, they develop a bond as much out of an affinity for each other as out of a need to connect now that they had left their homes and all that was familiar behind. The four women stay close after graduation and return to the Smith campus for Sally's wedding a few years after graduation. The story is told from each woman's point of view both during college and following college as they gather at Smith for the wedding. Their lives have moved on from when they were in college and the bonds formed during college are strained as the girls question whether they have truly made lifelong friends or if the magic of their shared college experience is what has held them together. 

Celia comes from a loving, Irish-Catholic family and is quick to make friends and draw others in; when she hears the beautiful Southern Belle, Bree, crying in the next dorm room she invites her in, offers her comfort (along with Oreos and Vodka- this IS college, after all) and gets to know her new hall mate. Bree has left her high school sweetheart at home and although she wants to pursue her dream of going to law school in Stanford, she wonders whether she should ditch her dreams and just go home and live a conventional life as fiance to her high school sweetheart. April is a staunch feminist, frequently on a soapbox about any number of issues and, on the surface seems to have little in common with the likes Celia and Bree. April's difficult childhood as the daughter of a single mother who frequently failed to protect her, however, has left her with a vulnerability that allows her to let the other girls in. Sally has experienced a great loss right before the start of school - the death of her mother to cancer - and her wealthy father's distance just further deepens the loss. She will need the three other girls to help her through her grief.

 My Thoughts
This book has all the making of chick lit or contemporary women's fiction but the writing elevates it to something literary. I found myself marking pages all through out the book both because I was impressed by the writing and the sentiments expressed resonated with me.

Sullivan so well captures that early adulthood (although I sometimes still feel this way!) insecurity about what life ahead holds for you and wanting to just be settled.

If things had been different, she would be in Carolyn's place right now.  She didn't want that sort of existence, but there was something so attractive about the security of feeling like you had stopped moving toward your life, and actually arrived.

As the women return to the Smith campus, they see college life through adult eyes with a certain amount of wistfulness.

In the main room, Smithies sat alone at carrels, serious as monks, their faces down in their used copies of Thackeray and Joan Didion. Sally had a ridiculous urge to walk over to them, smooth their hair, and tell them to savor every minute of this. But none of the girls even looked up. Sally was twenty-six, which in college student years was borderline elderly.

But my favorite quote is this one:

 The A train came quickly, as it always did at rush hour. Celia stepped into the crowded car and sucked in the burst of air conditioning. She closed her eyes as the train screeched to its next stop. Outwardly she was a very peaceful person. But the rage she felt daily on the New York City subway hinted at the possibility that the only difference between her and those raving-mad homeless people in the car was the she knew enough to keep quiet.

Commencement is an apt title for this novel - these young women, although mourning the end of their college years and having their best friends in their daily lives, are really at the start of their lives and recognizing that their friendships and what they have learned about themselves through those friendships will help them navigate what comes ahead. This novel has smart, well developed characters and is well written - I will definitely be reading more by this author.

Review: Big Brother by Lionel Shriver

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver is the story of Pandora Halfdonarson who is trapped between her recently obese brother and her aggressively fit, restrictive husband. Through Pandora and her navigation of these two diametrically opposed loved ones in her life, Shriver tackles the loaded and controversial topics of fat, diets, control and shame. Layered on top of obesity and its consequences, Shriver also explores the sibling relationship and attempts to answer the questions of whether someone can really be saved by another, how far the responsibility of siblings to take care of each other extends and whether blood really is thicker than water. This ambitious book constantly prompts you to think.

 Pandora Halfdonarson lives in Iowa with her husband, Fletcher, and his two teenage children from a previous marriage. Pandora had been a caterer when they met and prepared lavish meals for her then fiance. But Fletcher has taken on an almost religious discipline about eating and exercise; his meals are sparse and nutrient dense and he cycles for hours each day. Concurrent with, but ostensibly not because of, Fletcher's move towards the healthiest lifestyle, Pandora shutters her catering business and falls into a career creating custom made talking dolls for her business "Baby Monotony". Pandora's brother, Edison, is a jazz musician living in New York City but she receives a call from his friend asking Pandora if she can help out her brother by letting him come to visit. Concerned as to what may be going on, Pandora sends Edison money and tells him to book a flight. She is stunned when she meets him at the airport and sees that her brother has gained 200 pounds and is morbidly obese.

 The tension on their arrival home is almost immediate and Pandora worries about Fletcher or the children insulting her brother or reacting to his size without thinking. Everyone is repulsed by his size but he is Pandora's brother and her revulsion is tinged with sympathy and a desire to protect her brother. Pandora and Fletcher's relationship had cracks prior to Edison's arrival but having this literally larger than life character in their home coupled with all he brings along with him strain things even further. Edison cooks up large batches of chocolate chip pancakes for this household that eschews white flour; in addition to pushing food on them, his presence forces a confrontation of their feelings about excess, lack of control and indulgence. As things escalate at home, Pandora is forced to choose between her brother and husband.

My Thoughts
Fat is an important but loaded topic in society today and it is an important but loaded topic in my own life - I have struggled with weight and an eating disorder for most of my life. Having grown up in a, at times, obsessively health conscious home and even holding many of those beliefs myself despite my size, I am well-acquainted with the battle between self-loathing and indulgence that accompanies obesity.  Even during the times in my life when I have been thin, I have been obsessed with trying to maintain that and to neutralize food to a mere source of nourishment and not to imbue it with all this other meaning. Shriver expertly navigates this battle in Big Brother by placing Pandora between Edison and Fletcher. Fletcher represents the militant, "food only as fuel" camp while Edison represents the indulgent, "food as comfort" camp.  Pandora's own approach to food lies somewhere in between.  For example, here she describes her philosophy on food:

I propose: food is by nature elusive. More concept than substance, food is the idea of satisfaction, far more powerful than satisfaction itself, which is why diet can exert the sway of religion or political zealotry. Not irresistible tastiness but the very failure of food to reward if what drives us to eat more of it. The most sumptuous experience of ingestion is in-between: remembering the last bite and looking forward to the next one. The actual eating part almost doesn't happen. This near-total inability to deliver is what makes the pleasures of the table so tantalizing, and also so dangerous.

Pandora always represents the more balanced and, at times, conflicted point of view.

The relationship between Pandora and Edison is also central to this novel and, although complicated and brought to the fore by Edison's descent into "slow-motion suicide by pie", exists outside of Edison's obesity. Throughout their difficult childhood, Pandora and Edison relied on each to get through with a "ferocity of mutual clinging".

Often ashamed of tugging the children's loyalties in opposite directions, the parents fail to grasp their kids' salvation: the children's uppermost loyalty is to each other. . . . Edison and I did rat each other out from time to time, but they were isolated strategic sorties in the complex politics of the playroom about which our parents knew nothing. We used our Mom and Dad as weapons in the far more central relationship to one another. Certainly with Tanner and Cody, I tried never to forget: children know your secrets. You do not know theirs.

Sharp, intelligent writing allows challenging topics to be explored and to resonate for the reader. This book challenges you to consider your own visceral reactions to topics such as obesity and accountability to family members. You are also never completely sure where Pandora stands - there is sympathy for her brother, a desire to protect him but also disgust and frustration with his lack of control.  Although uncomfortable at times with characters I didn't always like, Big Brother is definitely on my list for Best Reads of 2013.

You can read other reviews of the book from those on the tour .

Thank you to the publisher for providing an ARC for review as part of the tour. 

Review: The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver

The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver is a sweeping, multi-generational tale that chronicles the Porter family (and their staff) during their summers at Ashaunt Point on Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. The point is a magical and mythical place for this family of privilege whose wealth does not insulate them from the big troubles faced by many families - death, mental illness and infirmity or the more pedestrian troubles of sibling rivalry, parental indifference and lack of direction. The constant throughout the generations is Ashaunt Point - it has a pull, both positive and negative, on the Porter family.

The book opens with the story being told by Bea, nanny to the young Porter children, who left Scotland to come to the US shortly after her mother's death.  It is 1942 and Bea is with the Porter family for the summer at Ashaunt Point. They share their summer oasis that year with the army stationed there for the war. There is a spareness to Bea - she lives carefully and seems afraid of happiness. Whether this comes from the devastation of losing of her mother and then leaving a country she felt no longer held anything for her or from a lifetime of limited expectations is hard to tell.  She is extraordinarily devoted to the Porter's youngest child, Janie, to the point that she is willing to sacrifice her own fulfillment to continue to care for Jane. This quote sums up the way in which Bea lives without allowing herself to yearn for much:

She had long ago given up the idea of having her own child - not given up, even, just never let the desire take shape, until in its shapelessness, it evaporated, it slipped away

Following Bea, the oldest Porter daughter Helen takes over the narrative with a series of letters and diary entries from Europe and then Ashaunt where she has returned for summers as an adult with her own family. She brings the story through to the 1960's and we see the progress in the lives of the Porters. All three daughters are married with children and each returns to Ashaunt with their families to the point that the Porter's home begins to resemble a hotel. Helen (aka Hellion) is restless and has always tested those around her. She has an insatiable thirst for knowledge but this also contributes to her constant searching and seeming inability to settle. Even at Ashaunt with her own family, Helen finds solace in her childhood summer destination but is still plagued by a sense of dissatisfaction.

Finally, Helen's adult son, Charlie,  takes over the narrative and we see Ashaunt Point again during war - this time the Vietnam War. Ashaunt Point still has a tremendous hold on this family - even Charlie believes it may be the only place in which he has been truly happy. Charlie is troubled  - almost as if the minor transgressions of the Porter's in earlier generations have all accumulated in this one son. He struggles with high expectations but an inability to deliver against them. As the book concludes in the 1990's, the stories begun throughout the book are brought to conclusion, as in a crescendo.

My Thoughts
This quiet book is remarkably moving and beautifully written. Despite what I felt was a slow start, I soon became captivated by Bea's story. Her practical but almost emotionless movement through life was fascinating to me. As each section of the novel played out, I found myself inextricably connected to these characters. This is surprising because, on the surface, there is very little about them to which I can relate. The key, however, is that their lives of privilege do not insulate them from everyday concerns and the characters are drawn so detailed that I found myself recognizing their emotions and frailties as similar to my own. Definitely recommend.

You can read other reviews from those on the TLC Tour (some are even offering a giveway!).

I received a copy of this book from the publisher as part of the tour