“You’re lucky your parents are normal.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  (MAR 5, 2011)

If, as Tolstoy posits, all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way, then the Goodyews would certainly rank highly in the toxic department. When British author Louise Dean’s fourth novel, The Old Romantic begins, it’s almost too easy to sympathize with Nick, a bachelor barrister who’s persuaded to visit his nasty old dad after years of estrangement. As Dean’s comic novel of manner unfolds, however, the web of familial relationships become increasingly more complicated, and ultimately Dean appears to take a tolerant approach to family foibles.

Forty-year old Nick, who was once known as Gary, has worked hard to reinvent himself. He’s dropped his working class accent as neatly as he dropped his family. His parents, Ken and Pearl divorced back in 1987, and Nick has managed to stay away from both of them for 15 years. Seventy-eight-year-old Ken is now remarried to a brave, almost mindlessly cheerful woman with “romantic aspirations” named June, and when the novel begins, Nick’s brother, Dave has persuaded Nick to pick up Ken and June and join Dave’s family for Christmas dinner. Nick doesn’t brave the journey alone, and he takes along his girlfriend, Astrid, a spa owner, for moral support. Here’s Astrid and Nick as they arrive at Ken’s house:

“ ‘Perchance’ is the name painted onto a cross section of a log, varnished and tacked to the guttering over the front door of the bungalow. The front garden is concrete. The other houses have two-foot high walls for decency’s sake but his has been demolished. Weeds have sprung up in the cracks of the forecourt. There’s a lean-to shelter outside the bungalow, with a corrugated yellow plastic roof and under it is a tall set of shelves stacked with various plastic bottles, some with their heads cut off: cooking oil, window cleaner, plant food. There is a decrepit Christmas tree in a pot, and an old Queen Anne wing-backed chair bearing a large bag of onions.

They sit there with the engine running. She turns the bracelets on her wrist. ‘Grim,’ she says lightly.”

While Astrid’s first impression of Nick’s father’s neglected home is “grim,” this is nothing compared to the debacle that erupts over Christmas dinner at Dave’s home. Amidst a scene of almost insufferable, interminable goading, Ken brings up the subject of his will. He’s leaving everything to younger son Dave, and if that’s not a big enough bombshell, he also tells Nick: “I want you to do me a divorce.”

Nick leaves the dinner abruptly and no amount of diplomacy and polite behaviour can smooth over the family-holiday-from-hell. While it may seem that the nastiness of the interrupted Christmas dinner will seal off any further contact between Nick and his father, in reality, this event is just the beginning. When June appears to run off with Ken’s nest egg, Nick is once more roped back into family affairs.

Nick’s life is complicated by a holiday he takes abroad with Astrid, and Ken’s life is complicated by his crush on local undertaker, Audrey. When Ken starts volunteering at the funeral home, Audrey thinks he’s a “groupie.” Ken’s interest in the funeral home is two-fold: he admires Audrey and he also harbors a death obsession. While picking up a body at a hospital, Ken runs into his ex-wife, Pearl–a tough, fiercely independent old bird who lives alone at a gamekeeper’s cottage.

In The Old Romantic, Dean appears to argue that while we may not like our families, and we may not like the roles we have within that family network, it is truly impossible to reinvent ourselves within that group. “Nick” is still Gary to his dad, and Dave is still the family diplomat, eager to smooth over nastiness and pretend everyone is happy. Astrid, who’s a bit of a snob, is shocked when she meets Nick’s family and sees what sort of background he comes from. She even catches his well-honed accent slipping and the new view of Nick as Ken’s son causes a crisis of sorts.

This is a very funny novel, and it’s almost impossible to select just one scene from so many deliciously wicked moments. One of my favourite scenes is when Nick, Dave and Ken form a posse to hunt down the runaway June. During the trip, the men all revert to increasingly clannish behaviour as they seek to right a wrong done to the family. Another brilliant scene takes place when a disgruntled Ken is taken to a posh restaurant, and he questions items on the menu complaining about the prices, making sure he spoils the experience for everyone. While his behaviour may seem nasty, it’s also extremely funny to put Ken at the same table with people who worry about every item of clothing and whether or not the rest of the clientele are up to snuff. Here’s Ken arriving at the restaurant:

“He came in like a desperate man, clasping the door handle and shoving the structure back into its frame, making quite a noise. It was as if he’d been wandering the souks of Northern Africa for many months, shoeless, before finding the British Embassy. It was as if he came with news of the enemy at the city gates. All eyes were upon him.

‘All right,’ he said.

He resisted the removal of his mac by the waitress.”

Last year I read Louise Dean’s novel Becoming Strangers. It’s the story a man with terminal cancer who goes on a final holiday with his appalling wife. She can no longer hide the fact that she’s impatient for him to die, and he’s just trying to get through the last few months with politeness as a guide. Becoming Strangers was one of the best books I read in 2010, and in spite of its subject matter, it was not grim (there’s that word again).

The Old Romantic is a very British novel, and it’s full of class markers. Some of the references may confuse the non-British reader, but if you’re ok with that, then The Old Romantic is a delightfully funny, generous look at family politics.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 3 readers
PUBLISHER:	Riverhead Hardcover; Reprint edition (February 17, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Louise Dean
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: This Human Season

Bibliography:

• Becoming Strangers (January 2006)  – Betty Trask Award
• This Human Season (February 2007)
• The Idea of Love (2008; July 2009 in US)
• The Old Romantic (2010; Feb 2011 in US)

“It was soon after Joseph left that Betty heard from her cousin Lou. Cousin Lou was an elegantly dressed man with a pink face for whom the description open-handed might have been invented. He had, to being with, disproportionately large hands that burst from his sleeves and were constantly slapping the backs and patting the cheeks and enfolding the helpless smaller hands of the many people he liked to have around him.  Lou had come to the United States as an evacuee in 1939, an eight-year-old boy from Austria bringing nothing with him but his eiderdown and a copy of Karl May’s first Winnetou novel. Betty’s uncle and aunt had taken him in for the duration of the war, but he stayed on after the war ended, for he had lost everyone in the camps. The loss of his family was something he never mentioned.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett (APR 11, 2010)

With her trademark wit and empathy, Schine pens another hilarious and affecting domestic comedy, using the ageless bones of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility as a template.

The story opens with 78-year-old Joseph Weissmann announcing to his wife of 48 years, Betty, that he wants a divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. “The name of Joe’s irreconcilable difference was Felicity, although Betty referred to her, pretending she could not remember the correct name, sometimes as Pleurisy, more often as Duplicity.”

Theirs has been a traditional mariage, but Joe assures Betty he wants to be generous.

“Generous? she thought. It was as if she were the maid and she was being fired. Would he offer her two months’ salary?

‘You cannot be generous with what is mine,’ she said.

And the divorce, like horses in a muddy race, their sides frothing, was off and running.”

It so happens that Betty’s grown daughters, mercurial Miranda, 49, and practical, bookish Annie, a couple years older, are at a crisis point in their lives too. Miranda’s business – agent to confessional memoir writers – is going down the tubes as her authors are revealed to be fakes and liars, and Annie is facing a lonely empty nest as her sons grow up and away.

When Betty is maneuvered out of the Central Park West apartment, her daughters move with her to a dilapidated cottage in Westport, owned by a generous sort-of cousin to whom the whole world is “family.” Miranda and Annie are furious with Josie, as they call their stepfather – the only father they have ever known. Tinged with heartbreak, their anger is all the more volatile.

Strapped for cash and unfamiliar with the concept, Miranda and Betty resort to charge cards while Annie struggles to make ends meet for all of them. At first it appears this family experiment is doomed but Cousin Lou keeps them busy and unsuitable romance soon beckons.

Heartbreak, hope, disappointment, catharsis and small epiphanies ensue as the three women bond, irritate and worry about one another. Readers will identify with all of them.

Schine brings an upper middle-class New York Jewish family and its milieu to Austen-esque life, while exploring various kinds of love (Miranda’s bond with a small child is visceral), and satirizing the preoccupations and poses of modern life.

A thoroughly delightful novel from the author of such gems as Rameau’s Niece (my personal favorite), The Love Letter and The New Yorkers.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 129 readers
PUBLISHER:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (February 2, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Cathleen Schine
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: She Is Me More Jane Austen in today’s novels: Beginner’s Greek by James Collins The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler Jane Austen in Boca by Paula Marantz Cohen

Bibliography:

• Alice in Bed (1983)
• To the Birdhouse (1990)
• Rameau’s Niece (1993)
• The Love Letter (1995)
• The Evolution of Jane (1998)
• She is Me (2003)
• The New Yorkers (2007)
• The Three Weismanns of Westport (2010)
• Fin & Lady (July 2013)

Everything is illusion, and I am confident that all is well. – a Tibetan adept

Book Review:

Review by Beth Chariton (JAN 11, 2010)

Francis’s story is a familiar one – she’s a housewife who’s bored in her marriage, unfulfilled as a mother at home, and unsure of her own identity. She’s married to reliable, boring, regular Harry. They live in the suburbs of New York City with their two children, seven-year-old Cathy and three-year-old Bernie. The man she was once so attracted to when they married, has become chubby, clumsy, and pathetic in her eyes.

Francis meets Beat poet, Joseph Pasternak at a wedding. He’s the total opposite of Harry – he’s artsy, philosophical, worldly and poetic, and she’s immediately smitten. She begins to fantasize about him, and they write personal letters to each other almost daily, full of erotic and romantic possibilities. Within a few weeks she’s on her way to Colorado where they begin an illicit, irrational affair. With Joseph, Francis creates her fantasy world where she feels sexy, desirable, living a life that’s passionate, interesting, and way more exciting than her regular life.

Harry is angry and upset by the affair, which Francis does very little to conceal, but he refuses to leave his wife and break up their family. While she’s away with Joseph, Harry tends to the house, the kids, and his job as an engineer. At first, he sleeps on the couch, but then builds himself a hut in the backyard, where he sleeps and works.

Joseph is not a self made man; he has been molded by his common law wife, Arlene Manhunter, a powerful and persuasive woman who is used to getting what she wants, and is relentless in her pursuits. She’s the respected founder of a school of poetry and translation, and she conveniently makes Joseph a Sanskrit professor. She provides him with a lifestyle that any man could want, in the hopes of calming his wandering eye.

When Arlene realizes that Francis might be a real threat, she does everything in her power to separate Joseph from her. She harasses Francis, threatening her by phone, and telling her of Joseph’s other indiscretions, hoping to scare her away, but Francis doesn’t care. When Arlene can no longer control Joseph, and sees he’s used her to get ahead, she disappears, knowing he will be arrested for suspicion of murder. Fearing that she’s next on the list of suspects, Francis begs Harry to let her go to Paris with their daughter, Cathy. He relents after many heated arguments.

Once in Paris, Francis takes on a carefree and bohemian existence, another fantasy world. Like Joseph, Paris is exhilarating to her, and she can’t understand why her daughter doesn’t immediately fall in love with the city. They go to museums and cafes, from hotel to hotel, oblivious to their limited funds. Their time there is extravagant and unrealistic, much like Francis’ affair with Joseph.

After some time in Paris, they realize they’re being watched. Eventually, Cathy and Francis befriend Lewis, the private investigator who’s been sent to follow them. Francis is still in contact with Joseph, who is in prison. But as time passes, the flaws of her relationship with Joseph begin to surface, and she realizes that she’s a long way from home, and the comfortable life that she took for granted. Although she’s suspicious, Francis begins to answer Lewis’ questions, finally exposing the truth – that she was in over her head, caught in a love triangle where she had no control, and that she had nothing to do with the disappearance of Arlene Manhunter.

The book was intricately written, and driven by frustrating characters. At first, I couldn’t find anything to like about Francis – she seemed selfish, insensitive and narcissistic. I couldn’t understand what she saw in Joseph. He saw himself as the victim in all of his failed affairs, couldn’t sustain himself financially, and had no official professional merits that he’d accomplished independently. But yet sensually, many women were drawn to him as a poet and a lover of nature. Harry consistently appeared as a doormat, and I wanted him to put Francis in her place. And Arlene, who was so beautiful, talented and capable, ended up to be no more personally assured than the others in the story. As the story slowly developed, I realized how hard Francis was trying to be someone she never would be, and how saddened and defeated she was by accepting her life and who she had become.

There were points where I almost ran out of patience, waiting to see a glimpse of a redeeming quality in Francis, while Joseph’s surface charm quickly dissipated. I found myself disappointed that Harry didn’t have more self-respect. The ending was depressing, and other than Francis realizing that the affair had to end, and that she had taken her wonderful family life for granted, I couldn’t find any positive outcome for any of the other characters. However, the story was thought provoking, and could certainly inspire a number of interesting and reflective debates. It was definitely geared more towards women, and many will secretly relate to Francis and her personal dilemma.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1 readers
PUBLISHER:	Permanent Press (August 1, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Beth Chariton
AMAZON PAGE:	Beat
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Only information I could find on Amy Boaz
EXTRAS:	Another review of BEAT
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	This one makes me think of : Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates Good Morning, Darkness by Ruth Francisco

Bibliography:

• A Richer Dust (March 2008)
• Beat (August 2009)

“All those years, when the girls were little, she had been doing what she loved. She had mothered with passion. She had comforted and dressed and bathed and taught her young daughters every day of the week, because she believed she could do it with more caring than anyone else in the world. And she had loved it all….”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (DEC 23, 2009)

In Laura Moriarty’s While I’m Falling, after twenty-six years of marriage, Veronica Von Holten’s parents, Dan and Natalie, are getting a divorce. Although she is a twenty-year old pre-med student, when Veronica hears the news, she reverts to acting like the little girl she once was. She morosely observes: “My parents were married when Reagan was president, when the first Bush was president, when Clinton was president, and then the second Bush as well. They had planned vacations, funerals, and my sister’s wedding, together.” Why must they split up now after having stayed together for so long?

Veronica knows that her parents have not always been on the same wavelength. Dan is a passionate trial lawyer “with a flair for drama” who is temperamental and tends to overanalyze everything. Her mom is a warm, nurturing, and sensitive soul who has always dedicated herself to taking care of her children, Veronica and Elise, and instilling in them a sense of self-worth. In addition, Natalie tended to both her own and Dan’s elderly mothers when they needed assistance. She has even looked after Bowzer, the family’s now ancient and ailing dog, whom Veronica begged for but then neglected. As time goes on, Dan and Natalie drift apart and a rather comical indiscretion on Natalie’s part has serious consequences. It is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Veronica’s older sister, Elise, is a busy lawyer who lives in San Diego with her husband, far from Kansas City and the rest of her family. Therefore, Veronica has to deal with her angst in her own way. She confides in her new boyfriend, Tim, an engineering grad student who lends her a sympathetic ear. Unfortunately, she has difficulty concentrating on her studies, especially organic chemistry, and begins to rethink her decision to become a doctor. When Veronica learns that Natalie is having serious financial problems while the divorce settlement drags on, it dawns on her that even her stalwart mother may not be invulnerable. Veronica acknowledges, “I had grown up with her kindness, taking it for granted, using it up.”

While I’m Falling is a funny, touching, and engrossing novel about a family in crisis. The author develops each character fully, portraying his or her strengths and weaknesses with sympathy and understanding. Moriarty shows, with wry humor and compassion, how our mistakes come back to bite us. For example, when Veronica house sits for a thuggish fellow Jimmy, she messes up royally and pays the price. In addition, although Veronica gets some perks for looking after the girls in her dorm, she routinely neglects her responsibilities and treats her charges with callous indifference. Her behavior does not go unnoticed.

The author’s witty dialogue, crisp prose style, and well-constructed plot make this novel a pleasure to read. Veronica, the narrator, is funny, candid, and at times, painfully clueless. Natalie is a sensible and pragmatic person, whose altruism is matched by her willingness to endure the consequences of her actions with pride and dignity. Even the sometimes oblivious Veronica comes to realize that her mother, imperfect as she may be, is a terrific role model who is well worth emulating. To her credit, Moriarty does not offer pat conclusions; unqualified happy endings are the stuff of fairy tales, not real life. While I’m Falling is a story that illustrates how the dissolution of a long-standing marriage affects not just the man and woman involved, but also those who depend on them for emotional sustenance.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 58 readers
PUBLISHER:	Hyperion; 1 edition (August 4, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Audio interview with Laura Moriarty
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Others you might like: My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman Little Children by Tom Perrotta The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

Bibliography:

• The Center of Everything 2003)
• The Rest of Her Life (2007)
• While I’m Falling (2009)
• The Chaperone (June 2012)