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Peopled by a set of wonderful characters: a married couple--he, a garbage man; she, a political science professor at a university in an Illinois college town; their 20-year-old daughter & her 6-year-old son; the wife's eccentric elderly father (the "century's son"), who claims to have lived the entire 20th century & witnessed many of its key events, including an opportunity to assassinate Stalin; and a number of other richly portrayed lesser characters. The couple's son, then 12, committed suici...
This is a moving portrayal of a family in crisis. The family copes with dealing with a death, and after a few years, are still coping. Also a commentary on memory, change and how we perceive the truths of our lives. My favorite quote from the book: "For what is the world, after all, for anyone, but the accumulation of images that change as we record them and change again as we recall them and change again as we speak them, the words disappearing at the same moment we give them life?"
Boz. Wow. You read something like this, and it's so tight, so pulled together, that you despair of ever being able to write anything worth a damn. Read it.
I liked this one. Boswell manages an interesting story and individualized characters who interlock, but not such that they're all gears in the same exact machine. They turn within themselves and sometimes catch on each other. The book moves, but it isn't a single central puzzle that is either solved or not. Some things progress, and others don't. That just made it feel more realistic to me, much more like an individual and actual family of somewhat broken somewhat not people.
"Everyone you knew was merely a coincidence in your life--except for your family. Whose blood you shared. Whose story was your story. There was no escaping family."The story was that of a couple couping with life and I'd say drifting apart. Never really brought back together but never abandoning the other. Their daughter still leading a life set in motion by someone long dead (her brother) continuing along the path she envisioned was dictated to her. Not sure how the grandfather fit into all of
The depth of emotional underpinnings, the increasing levies of misunderstanding, as well as certain details (Morgan's faceprint in Zhenya's dress, "as if it had leaked out of her," was a detail I've been chewing on for some time now since I've finished the novel), all make this a wonderful novel.
Interesting look into how losing a child colors everything else in your life for the rest of your life. Worth the read but nothing I'd rave about.
A compelling portrait of a family divided and united by loss. The family members are both ordinary and exotic. Their moral dilemmas are navigated with grace, ambiguity and humor. Robert Boswell moves events along at a thoughtful pace; his characters are nuanced and memorable. He turns a phrase nicely, too:"Wisdom that fit into a lunch box, that was what the public wanted. Here and everywhere. Americans were no more shallow than any other people, just more pampered, so they had come to treasure t...
I took my time reading this one. I'm not sure why. It's well written and for the most part enjoyable. I think at times Boswell loses focus, but he's handling the POVs of numerous characters and that can tend to pull a story in unexpected directions. Still, an engaging tale of a family dealing with the death of a son. Worth you time.
the boz is a great writer and teacher
