LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR by Mary McGarry Morris
Nellie Peck is thirteen years old going on forty. She is wise, intelligent and impulsive. Despite her precociousness, however, she is still a child. She lives with her parents and two siblings, Ruth and Henry; Ruth is a half-sister from a relationship that her mother had in high school. The Pecks are struggling financially. Nellie’s mother works as a hair dresser and Nellie’s father owns a hardware store that is slowly going under. Her father’s passion is his writing – he is writing a tome about the history of their town, Springvale. His goal is to get it self-published so that it can be read by a wide audience.
October 26, 2011
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Judi Clark · 
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Tags: Contemporary, Family Matters, Mary McGarry Morris, murder mystery · Posted in: Contemporary, Family Matters, Morality, Small Town
THE REDEMPTION OF GEORGE BAXTER HENRY by Conor Bowman
George Baxter Henry is no paragon of virtue. In fact, he is a paradigm of vice, with a penchant for lustful young women. His marriage is on the rocks and his fractured family is falling apart. Connor Bowman’s novella after The Last Estate takes us back to the South of France—this time Nice, but with an American protagonist. In this sinfully laugh-out-loud story about a wounded family trying to stitch itself back together, Bowman manages to make the reader care about these cross and querulous individuals who are headed on a grease skid to oblivion.
October 16, 2011
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Tags: Family Matters, Humorous, Permanent Press · Posted in: Family Matters, France, Humorous
WE THE ANIMALS by Justin Torres
WE THE ANIMALS in this wonderful debut novel refers to three brothers, close in age, growing up in upstate New York. They are the Three Musketeers bound strongly together not just because of geographical isolation but because of cultural separateness too. The brothers are born to a white mother and a Puerto Rican father—they are half-breeds confused about their identity and constrained by desperate and mind-numbing poverty.
September 22, 2011
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Tags: brothers, Contemporary, Domestic Violence, Family Matters, Gay/Lesbian, lyrical, Poverty · Posted in: Class - Race - Gender, Coming-of-Age, Contemporary, Family Matters, Identity, Latin American, NE & New York
BIRDS OF PARADISE by Diana Abu-Jaber
BIRDS OF PARADISE by Diana Abu-Jaber is a richly layered and beautifully written novel. It is akin to an archeological dig – each layer uncovering unexpected treasures. The book begins five years before Hurricane Katrina hit and ends during its aftermath.
September 15, 2011
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Tags: 2011 Favorites, Contemporary, Economy, Family Matters, Norton · Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Award Winning Author, Contemporary, Family Matters, Florida, Life Choices
STONE ARABIA by Dana Spiotta
…This nostalgic and affecting story of siblings (and family) is a philosophical meditation on memory and the driven desire for autobiography–to document and render a consequential life, and to assemble disparate experiences into coherent narratives. “And even then,” says Denise, “the backward glance is distorted by the lens of the present…It is not just that emotions distort memory. It is that memory distorts memory.”
September 6, 2011
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Tags: brother-sister, Contemporary, Family Matters, Memory, Music · Posted in: Contemporary, Family Matters
THE FAMILY FANG by Kevin Wilson
Perhaps it’s entirely appropriate that their last name is Fang. For Caleb and Camille are truly parasites—sucking the blood out of their children, while using them primarily in the service of their art. “Kids kill art,” the elder Fangs’ mentor once told them. Determined to prove him wrong, Caleb and Camille incorporate Annie and Buster, their two children, into their art—even referring to them as Child A and Child B, mere props in the various performance art sketches they carry out.
September 5, 2011
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 2011 Favorites, Art, brother-sister, Dysfunctional, Ecco, Family Matters, Humorous · Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Contemporary, Debut Novel, Family Matters, Humorous
