I've been a fan of Caprice Crane since her first book, "Stupid and Contagious," hit shelves in 2006. Her follow-up, "Forget About It," placed me firmly in her fan club. What I love about Crane is that her characters are perfectly flawed. They bumble through life, as most of us do, with their share of baggage and neurosis, in a way that is both endearing and entirely relatable. I have a hard time reading a book full of perfect characters, who always say the right thing at the right time, and always know how to react in any given situation. I want my love stories to seem as if they might actually last past the last page of the book.
Crane's new release, "Family Affair," has many of the same elements that endeared me to her first two novels. Layla and Brett Foster have been together since...well, forever. They were high school sweethearts who got married shortly after finishing college. Now almost thirty, Brett is struggling with the marriage, feeling like their relationship has gotten stale. Layla has been a part of his family since her mother died in the tenth grade, but lately Brett is beginning to feel as if Layla is more of a sister than a wife. She spends more time cooking with his mother, playing poker with his father, owning a business with his sister, and serving as a confidant to his brother than she does attending his football games (he's the coach). One night at dinner, while Layla is thinking that Brett is going to announce that he wants children, Brett instead announces that he wants a divorce.
Layla is understandably crushed- how could you not be? However, she is determined not to lose both Brett and his family. Over the years, they have come to see her as a part of the family, and she isn't about to lose everything she has simply because her husband no longer wants to be married. Brett becomes increasingly angry and jealous of Layla, especially when he finds that his family (along with most of his friends) have taken her side in this dispute. He becomes absolutely livid when Layla files for joint custody of his family, and becomes determined to push her away by any means necessary.
The insanity that follows Brett's announcement is, in equal parts, both heartbreaking and hysterical. Both Brett and Layla are perfectly aware of how immature they are being, yet seem incapable of rising above their conflicting emotions in order to be the bigger person. "Family Affair" showcases all of the mistakes people make in dealing with loved ones, and how the power of family can overcome (almost) any obstacle. Within Brett and Layla, one can see the answers to the question of what goes wrong in a relationship.
I will admit that the ending is a bit more abrupt and storybook-ish than what seems reasonable for the amount of damage each party has done to the other (after all, Brett DID bring another woman to Christmas with him, knowing Layla would be there. This isn't something that's likely to be easily forgiven). All in all, however, Crane has produced an incredibly realistic, touching, and entertaining story about marriage, family, and love.
--Jenn C.
Showing posts with label general fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label general fiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, August 17, 2009
"Amateur Marriage" by Anne Tyler
Being married 27 years myself, I am always entertained by stories of marriage and family, and all the joys and tribulations associated with both. The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler is set in Baltimore and the plot moves effortlessly over a period of sixty years. Known for capturing the tumultuous lives of the ordinary American middle class, the author symbolizes the rocky road of Michael and Pauline Anton’s relationship using the attack on Pearl Harbor as the back drop for their first meeting.
Without getting bogged down in the details of the social issues of the day Ms. Tyler focuses on the complexities of family life within a changing society as the mismatched couple builds their family through the 1950s: having children, moving from the city to the suburbs, taking care of elderly parents, and suffering through adulterous behavior.
The family is torn apart in the sixties as the reader is witness to the effects of the developing counterculture of hippies, beatniks and drugs leaving Michael and Pauline to struggle with abandonment and wondering what they could have done differently.
Eventually the couple and the family reach a middle ground in which ignoring differences and moving past placing blame allows one character to quietly reflect about Michael and Pauline. ''You were ice and she was glass, two oddly similar substances, come to think of it -- and both of them hell on your children.''
I highly recommend “The Amateur Marriage” and others by Anne Tyler including “Ladder of Years” and “The Accidental Tourist”.
--Larry G.
Without getting bogged down in the details of the social issues of the day Ms. Tyler focuses on the complexities of family life within a changing society as the mismatched couple builds their family through the 1950s: having children, moving from the city to the suburbs, taking care of elderly parents, and suffering through adulterous behavior.
The family is torn apart in the sixties as the reader is witness to the effects of the developing counterculture of hippies, beatniks and drugs leaving Michael and Pauline to struggle with abandonment and wondering what they could have done differently.
Eventually the couple and the family reach a middle ground in which ignoring differences and moving past placing blame allows one character to quietly reflect about Michael and Pauline. ''You were ice and she was glass, two oddly similar substances, come to think of it -- and both of them hell on your children.''
I highly recommend “The Amateur Marriage” and others by Anne Tyler including “Ladder of Years” and “The Accidental Tourist”.
--Larry G.
Friday, May 8, 2009
New Release: The Help
In The Help, a first novel by Kathryn Stockett, it is the 1960s and Jackson, Mississippi is still in the grip of racial segregation. White women trust their black housemaids with the children but not with the family silver, and the black maids are more afraid of the wrath of the society matrons than of the KKK. The two main items on the Jackson Junior League’s agenda are sending food to the starving children of Africa and promoting the Home Help Sanitation Initiative to encourage homeowners to build a separate bathroom for the maid.
Skeeter Phelan sees the irony of the situation, though she doesn’t claim an interest in civil rights or political affairs. But when Skeeter returns from college and finds that her family’s maid and her longtime confidante, Constantine, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, she starts asking questions that could permanently disrupt the social status quo. She’s just trying to find out what happened to Constantine, while dodging her mother’s criticism and working on her fledgling writing career. But the only writing job she can get is a domestic advice column in the local paper, so she turns to her friend’s maid, Aibileen, for advice about rust stains, silver polish, and laundry.
Aibileen has raised seventeen white children in her career as a maid, but since her own son died in an accident at the sawmill where he worked, she has begun to chafe under the pressure of racial inequality. She is willing to answer Miz Skeeter’s questions about household maintenance, but she refuses to talk about Constantine — and when Skeeter gets a daring idea for a book about the life of a Mississippi housemaid, Aibileen realizes that telling the truth could be a matter of life and death.
Aibileen’s best friend, Minny, doesn’t know how not to tell the truth, and her opinions are about to spell the death of her employment options. She has gotten on the bad side of Hilly Holbrook, queen bee of the Jackson social set, and if word gets out about the Terrible Awful she committed against the all-powerful Hilly, losing another job will be the least of Minny's troubles.
As the civil rights movement heats up, a New York editor agrees to read the book that Skeeter has written with Aibileen, Minny, and several other maids. The stories they tell are about a complex relationship of both love and hate, trust and fear, interdependence and inequality. If anyone figures out the anonymous work is really about Jackson — well, none of them wants to think about what might happen then. The women have a plan to keep their big secret, with the unwitting help of the fearsome Miss Hilly, but the book will change all their lives.
This book is excellent—complex, detailed, engaging, and well-written. The author captures the individual characters’ voices with amazing understanding. A topic like segregation is easily turned into a lecture or a horror story, but The Help shows the full range of emotion — love, friendship, humor, petty squabbles, worries about money or boyfriends or what Mama might say. It gives a rare and insightful view of segregation and racial conflict from the inside, from the personal perspective of seemingly minor players in the larger drama.
And if literary characters can be judged by God, I’m pretty sure Hilly Holbrook is going to hell.
--Tiffany H.
Skeeter Phelan sees the irony of the situation, though she doesn’t claim an interest in civil rights or political affairs. But when Skeeter returns from college and finds that her family’s maid and her longtime confidante, Constantine, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, she starts asking questions that could permanently disrupt the social status quo. She’s just trying to find out what happened to Constantine, while dodging her mother’s criticism and working on her fledgling writing career. But the only writing job she can get is a domestic advice column in the local paper, so she turns to her friend’s maid, Aibileen, for advice about rust stains, silver polish, and laundry.
Aibileen has raised seventeen white children in her career as a maid, but since her own son died in an accident at the sawmill where he worked, she has begun to chafe under the pressure of racial inequality. She is willing to answer Miz Skeeter’s questions about household maintenance, but she refuses to talk about Constantine — and when Skeeter gets a daring idea for a book about the life of a Mississippi housemaid, Aibileen realizes that telling the truth could be a matter of life and death.
Aibileen’s best friend, Minny, doesn’t know how not to tell the truth, and her opinions are about to spell the death of her employment options. She has gotten on the bad side of Hilly Holbrook, queen bee of the Jackson social set, and if word gets out about the Terrible Awful she committed against the all-powerful Hilly, losing another job will be the least of Minny's troubles.
As the civil rights movement heats up, a New York editor agrees to read the book that Skeeter has written with Aibileen, Minny, and several other maids. The stories they tell are about a complex relationship of both love and hate, trust and fear, interdependence and inequality. If anyone figures out the anonymous work is really about Jackson — well, none of them wants to think about what might happen then. The women have a plan to keep their big secret, with the unwitting help of the fearsome Miss Hilly, but the book will change all their lives.
This book is excellent—complex, detailed, engaging, and well-written. The author captures the individual characters’ voices with amazing understanding. A topic like segregation is easily turned into a lecture or a horror story, but The Help shows the full range of emotion — love, friendship, humor, petty squabbles, worries about money or boyfriends or what Mama might say. It gives a rare and insightful view of segregation and racial conflict from the inside, from the personal perspective of seemingly minor players in the larger drama.
And if literary characters can be judged by God, I’m pretty sure Hilly Holbrook is going to hell.
--Tiffany H.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
New Arrival: The Servants' Quarters
Over the weekend I read a book we’d just received, The Servants’ Quarters, by Lynn Freed. It’s a cross between a coming-of-age novel, a retelling of Beauty and the beast, and (in an odd way) Gigi. I’ve had time to think about it and I’m still not sure what to make of this book.
In the decade after World War II, ten-year-old Cressida lives with her family in reduced circumstances. Her father’s in a coma following an accident on the golf course, her socially ambitious mother is trying to ingratiate herself with the local version of the upper crust, and her older, not-too-bright sister finds herself in a precarious position. Her corner of South Africa is far from Europe, but Cressida becomes obsessed with the Holocaust, which she learns about in a couple of her father’s books; the family is Jewish, and she’s convinced that the Germans are coming to get her.
Enter George Harding, the mysterious former RAF pilot who lives up the hill and goes to great lengths to hide the scars he got in a terrible wartime plane crash. Mr. Harding invites the family to come live on his estate, in the empty carriage house. At first Cressida fears him almost as much as she does her imaginary German pursuers, but she soon becomes accustomed to him. She’s supposed to be a playmate to Mr. Harding’s nephew Edgar, but Edgar is not nearly as interesting as his uncle. For his part, the estate owner recognizes a special quality in Cressida, one that her grasping mother can’t, and he begins a gradual process of grooming the child, now teen, now young woman. But to what end?
It’s a quick read. The story moves along at a pretty brisk pace. In addition to Cressida and Mr. Harding, there are a number of wonderful characters: Phineas, the Zulu manservant; Miranda, Cressida’s hapless sister; old Mrs. Harding, George’s dotty mother who’s not quite as senile as she lets on. And then there’s Cressida’s mother, a social climber of the worst sort, unctuous and insinuating. In some ways she reminded me of Mrs. Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, only slightly less stupid and way more unpleasant. I enjoyed the South African setting, at once exotic and somewhat familiar (it reminded me of another recent book set in 1950s South Africa, the mystery A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn).
As I said up at the top of the page, though, I’m still not sure what to make of this book. The climax unfolds somewhat abruptly, and the coda struck me as just a little rushed, to the point that I wasn’t quite sure why Cressida, whom I thought I’d gotten to know over the course of the novel, would do the things she did. But that’s a minor quibble, considering how much I liked everything that came before. I’m betting this will be a great title for a book club!
If you enjoy coming-of-age novels, if you’d like reading about a different part of the world, or if you’re interested in characters who learn to look beyond what they see to find the beauty in each other, I would recommend The Servants’ Quarters to you. Call or go online to our catalog to reserve your copy today.
--Nora
In the decade after World War II, ten-year-old Cressida lives with her family in reduced circumstances. Her father’s in a coma following an accident on the golf course, her socially ambitious mother is trying to ingratiate herself with the local version of the upper crust, and her older, not-too-bright sister finds herself in a precarious position. Her corner of South Africa is far from Europe, but Cressida becomes obsessed with the Holocaust, which she learns about in a couple of her father’s books; the family is Jewish, and she’s convinced that the Germans are coming to get her.
Enter George Harding, the mysterious former RAF pilot who lives up the hill and goes to great lengths to hide the scars he got in a terrible wartime plane crash. Mr. Harding invites the family to come live on his estate, in the empty carriage house. At first Cressida fears him almost as much as she does her imaginary German pursuers, but she soon becomes accustomed to him. She’s supposed to be a playmate to Mr. Harding’s nephew Edgar, but Edgar is not nearly as interesting as his uncle. For his part, the estate owner recognizes a special quality in Cressida, one that her grasping mother can’t, and he begins a gradual process of grooming the child, now teen, now young woman. But to what end?
It’s a quick read. The story moves along at a pretty brisk pace. In addition to Cressida and Mr. Harding, there are a number of wonderful characters: Phineas, the Zulu manservant; Miranda, Cressida’s hapless sister; old Mrs. Harding, George’s dotty mother who’s not quite as senile as she lets on. And then there’s Cressida’s mother, a social climber of the worst sort, unctuous and insinuating. In some ways she reminded me of Mrs. Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, only slightly less stupid and way more unpleasant. I enjoyed the South African setting, at once exotic and somewhat familiar (it reminded me of another recent book set in 1950s South Africa, the mystery A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn).
As I said up at the top of the page, though, I’m still not sure what to make of this book. The climax unfolds somewhat abruptly, and the coda struck me as just a little rushed, to the point that I wasn’t quite sure why Cressida, whom I thought I’d gotten to know over the course of the novel, would do the things she did. But that’s a minor quibble, considering how much I liked everything that came before. I’m betting this will be a great title for a book club!
If you enjoy coming-of-age novels, if you’d like reading about a different part of the world, or if you’re interested in characters who learn to look beyond what they see to find the beauty in each other, I would recommend The Servants’ Quarters to you. Call or go online to our catalog to reserve your copy today.
--Nora
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