Category: Family Drama

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

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This novel is a tribute to family, faith, and love. Told through the voice of 11‑year‑old Reuben Land, the story begins with the miracle of his birth. His father, Jeremiah, arrived late to the delivery room. After 12 minutes without breathing, the doctor told Reuben’s mother there was nothing more to be done. But Jeremiah picked up his son and commanded him to breathe in the name of the living God—and Reuben did. From then on, however, Reuben lived with severe asthma.

Jeremiah had once studied medicine but gave it up to follow the path of God. He worked humbly as a janitor at the town school. A man of deep faith and honor, he saved his son’s teenage girlfriend from being attacked in the boys’ locker room during a football game. The boys involved were known troublemakers who had terrorized the town, and they soon turned their anger on the Land family. They harassed them repeatedly, even kidnapping the youngest daughter, Swede, and hurting her before returning her home. At that point, Reuben’s older brother Davy realized the danger would never end. Armed with a shotgun, he waited in his room. When the two boys broke into the house, Davy shot them dead.

Although Davy believed he was protecting his family, he knew he had taken human lives. He was arrested but later escaped from jail and disappeared. Jeremiah, desperate to find his son, gathered the family into an Airstream trailer and set out toward the Badlands.

Both Davy and Reuben were the focus of their father’s prayers, but those prayers came with a cost. Reuben had been given life, yet his breathing remained weak and difficult. Davy knew his father prayed for God’s help against the family’s tormentors, but the price was heavy—Davy’s own act of violence. The novel suggests that faith can bring solutions, but those solutions are not always the same as justice.

The writing is strong, though at times the events feel a little unbelievable. Still, the family’s love and faith in one another never waver, making this a powerful story about resilience and devotion.

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

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We start by meeting a group of people dedicated to swimming in a community pool. The habits of these people, told with no emotion, are detailed. The pool rules are detailed and lived by. The people, from all walks of life, have different reasons for being there. All are detailed for us.

A crack is found in the pool, and the reactions of the pool staff, specialists, and swimmers are all detailed. There are things that can be done, they don’t know what the source is, the cracks disappear for a few days, but then they are back. The unknown is making people uneasy, the swimmers start to find other places to go, only a few remain to the very end.  

Throughout, there is Alice – swimming and unperturbed by what is going on. 

The second half of the book focuses on Alice. She is being placed in a memory care ward by her family. The slow decline of Alice – from waiting by the door for her husband to pick her up to not knowing who is visiting is heartbreaking. At home her husband refuses to change the sheets or wash her nightgown, as he misses her.

The story – starting with the swimming pool – is about the decent into dementia. The impact a fissure in the brain, the specialists trying to help, the inexplainable coming and going of symptoms, and the inevitability of the disease. This unique way of bringing the story alive made it all the more moving by needing to make the connections in your own head shows the complexity of the disease.

Well written and thought provoking, I look forward to more from this author.

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

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A migrant family from Nova Scotia picks berries in Maine each summer. These regular workers come and set up house, welcoming the same migrant families to the farm with them to share the labor. The families are full of love and joy as they gather each year together. One summer, however, things take a bad turn. The two youngest – Joe and Ruthie, 8 and 4 respectively – are out one afternoon. Joe leaves Ruthie sitting on a rock in the sunshine not far from the house, and she disappears. The family is distraught, and spends days, and then years searching for her. They only stop returning each summer after Charlie is killed. While neither of these tragedies is their fault, they are blamed because they are Indian.

Norma grows up in a home stifled by an overprotective mother. Norma was the miracle child after many miscarriages. She spent her life under constant watch of her mother, never allowed to be out of her sight. Photos of her before the age of 5 don’t exist, and Norma was told they were lost in a fire. Her Aunt June provides a respite from this stifling love. Norma was plagued by nightmares as a child – the smell of open fires and potatoes, a mother that is not her mother, and more. She is told they are her imagination. She even names her doll Ruthie and has an imaginary friend named Joe.

Told in alternating voices of these two people as they reflect on what had been real, what had been hidden in plain sight, and the agony of not putting things together are heard from both. The regrets of things not understood, things being ignored, or things being kept from them, shaped their lives.

Anger and sadness – two sides of a single coin. Anger consumes Joe, the last person to see Ruthie before she disappeared, as he runs from his family, himself, and his sadness for decades. Sadness consumes Norma, the person that chooses to be by herself because she can’t accept joy of building a family when she feels there is something missing, and the anger at being lied to by all she thought she loved. By facing themselves, forgiving others, and allowing others to help, both are given the gift they were both looking for – love.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

The redhead by the side of the road by Anne Tyler

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This is the story of Micah, a fortyish year-old man that lives in a basement apartment where he is the super, runs a free-lance computer tech business, and lives a regimented and predictable life. We see how Micah is in need of this structure, but yet his dreams and his visualizations tell you otherwise. When he is running each morning without his glasses, he believes that the fire-hydrant is a redhead child and that there are other objects that resemble people also. Then there is the dream of a baby being left at a store in an actual dream.

When a teenage boy shows up on his doorstep asking if Micah is his father, however, what Micah thinks is normal is turned on its head. He begins to examine his life, and his choices, that have left him alone (his girlfriend Cass of three years had just left him) and unhappy. This awakening, something that Anne Tyler writes about in such beautiful language, is how the book ends.

Similar themes as in most of Tylers books, this is yet another example of how living a small life comes at a cost. 

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

Herring Cove Road Trilogy by Michael Kroft

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On Herring Cove Road: Mr Rosen and the 43lb anxiety

Still on Herring Cove Road: Hickory, Dickory Death

Off Herring Cove Road: The trouble with being Blue

This is a series that is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. In the first book you meet Ruth and Avriel Rosen. An older couple that has retired and recently moved to a new home on Herring Cove Road. In the first book you first meet Dewey Dixon, a ten year old boy that lives next door to the Rosen’s. Being unwelcome as Jews by the father, Mr. Rosen is a bit offended when addressed as Mr. Jew by the young child. Ruth, however, befriends Dewey’s mother Lisa, who is horrified to hear her son call them this, as she didn’t know her bigoted husband had impacted her son this way. Dewey, however, just thought it was their last name. 

As the friendship between the two families grow, Lisa and Dewey come to rely on the Rosen’s. Through death, poverty, drugs, and kidnapping, a family of choice emerges. They take care of each other, and put all on the line to ensure the safety, physical and mental, are taken care of for all. 

Over three books you see the back stories of these people, how they became who they are, and how they learn to rely upon each other. With the first book being my favorite, the other books give a satisfying if not joyful conclusion to the story. There is also a prequel in the series but I did not read that.

A fun and gentle story of how we all rely on each other; how we just need to be open to allowing others to help.

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

Dinner at the Lakeside Supper Club by J Ryan Stradal

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This novel follows generations of women – matriarch Betty, her daughter Florence, granddaughter Mariel and great granddaughter Julia – as they live their lives in the north woods of Minnesota. This is a story of generational expectations, familial obligations, and family conflict. This story shows that those that know you best are the ones that hurt you the most.

The story flips back and forth between times and people, which at times can be confusing and difficult to keep track, especially if you are listening to this. The technique, however, is effective in revealing the story – as you are never really sure of the full history of life in a linear way as you hear the history and revisit it with different eyes of experience and maturity.

In linear fashion: Betty arrives with Florence in tow and finds a job, purpose and a future at the Lakeside Supper Club in Bear Jaw MN. Florence, in desperate need for love and acceptance creates that security for her mother with Floyd, while destroying it for him and his male partner. She is not formally banished from the place, but knows she is not welcome because of the price Floyd paid for her selfishness. Florence becomes a mother herself, and becomes preoccupied with keeping her daughter Mariel safe and close. When Mariel meets Ned, the heir to a family chain of restaurants, they fall in love and marry. After tragedy again strikes near Florence, impacting others deeply again, there is a distance between Mariel and Florence that keeps her from Bear Jaw again. Through a series of events when Florence waits to be picked up by Mariel at the church – for two months – Florence reveals that she was simply waiting for when Mariel was ready to let her in.

The complex relationships between these women also hides difficult realities. Betty is searching for security after she runs away with Florence from the Yellow House. The implication is that they fled abuse happening there, and Betty would do anything to make sure she didn’t face that again, including making Floyd give up on his secret love. Florence married and gave birth to Mariel, but couldn’t bear to let her out of her sight. She was doing the same thing that Betty did – trying to make sure she was secure, even at the cost of her daughter’s dreams of moving away. Mariel, having given up on her hopes, finds new ones with Ned, but again her mother’s focus on the wrong thing ruins everything for everyone else. After forgiveness has been found, and Mariel gives birth to Julia, there is little time for these two to get to know each other, for Mariel dies of lung cancer when Julia is four. Her father takes over the Lakeside Supper Club, but Julia knows that this has been saved for her future, as she will inherit it. She hates working there, loving nature instead. Ned allows her to strike out on her own at college in Ohio, and comes back to sell the Supper Club when she is 21. Julia had kept waiting for her mother to come to her to show her the way, but she never appeared. After she sells the place to someone local that will love it as her family did, her father then lets her in on the fact that her mother would be proud Julia was able to make her own destiny.

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

The Real Mrs Tobias by Sally Koslow

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This is the story of three generations of wives that have married into the Tobias family. Veronika, a survivor of WW2, married David; Melanie (Mel) married their son Jake; and Birdie married the grandson Micah. Veronika is a psychiatrist, Melanie is a social worker and Birdie is an aspiring author. Birdie and Michah have been having challenges in their marriage, which comes to a head when a drunk Michah hits a woman with his food truck and runs from the scene. The meddling and self serving interference of both mother Mel is annoying. If we are to have any compassion for her it is very hard. All revolves around what she wants – to have her granddaughter with her always, regardless of what is best for the child or her parents. She is also unethical by keeping a patient she has a conflict of interest with (it was her nanny that Micah hit) and her counsel to her patients was about how it made her feel for her own choices. Veronika, also a meddler, is not easy to care about either. Condescending and self-righteous, she too meddles to her family’s life. In the end, however, all seems clear that the meddling can do some good, even if it is misguided. While I never liked most of the characters, I did want to learn how it was all going to wrap up.

book-review, books, Family Drama, Hispanic and Latinx Cultures, reading

Neruda on the Park by Cleyvis Natera

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Who would have said that the earth with its ancient skin would change so much? Pablo Neruda

The Neruda quote is a wonderful way to kick off this story. This is about what change can bring about – both good and bad – when you make choices in relations to that change.

Change always seems to happen at once. Luz is awakened by the crashing of demolition on the building next door. She heads out in her power suit to meet her boss, Raenna, who has said she has news. Luz is expecting to be promoted. She is, however, blindsided that she will be fired and is advised to quit before it happens. Luz is as shattered as the building. Even worse – Angelica, a former friend from school, was at her first day as a waitress at the exclusive restaurant where this happened – and heard the whole thing. How will Luz tell her parents, Vladimer and Eusebia, who had worked so hard to help her achieve this success?

As expected, Angelica tells the local gossips, The Tongues, before Luz can bring herself to tell her parents. Hurt about hearing the news from the Tongues, Eusebia is not paying attention as she is pulling a cart of dirty clothing to the laundry mat. She falls, hits her head and is shaken badly. The Tongues help her up and take care of her to make sure she is alright. But is she?

As the tenants around Northar Park are watching the destruction of the building, they all begin to receive notices from landlords of other buildings that the apartments they have lived in for decades will be converting to condos, and they can be bought out or just move. But where can they move that they can afford? What about all the time they spent building the community? What would become of them all? Eusebia, whose head continues to throb after the fall, becomes enraged at the prospect of being pushed out and hatches a plan to halt the building.

While the plan is being put in place, Luz attends a block party where she meets Hunter, the white developer that is leading the gentrification of the neighborhood. Undeniable attraction brings them together.  Just as with Luz’s career, there is a divide between where she came from and what she is defined as to be “successful”. She enters Hunter’s world of wealth and privilege with wariness and discomfort that she had shed at Harvard and in the NY law firm.  

We then hear the story from Eusebia. How she will make the area seem undesirable to those outside the community, orchestrating robberies, peeping toms, and assaults. All while Vladimer, her husband and Luz’s father, chases a suspect that killed a boy and wrote “Go Home” on the body for the NYPD. We eventually learn she had been reluctant to come to the US with a 9 year old Luz, and had always talked about moving back with Vladimer at some point. Unknown to her, he and Luz were building a dream home in DR as a surprise, but she no longer wanted to return.

The choices that everyone makes – to try to halt the building project, to participate in the schemes of Eusebia, or to build a home in DR, there are questions about what choices you make. How do you choose to support your family? How do you choose to react to a letter of eviction? How do you choose to react to those that choose a different reality? All these questions are the explorations of the members of the community.

The demolition was ahead of schedule, just like the dismantling of Luz’s career/identity and Eusebia’s definition of self. As the women begin to find themselves and their voices, the building begins to go up. Through shattering events, the world crashes in on the family again, and the community again embraces them and helps them move forward. Each woman is scarred, differently, but each will grow as they need.

There are many more ways in which the choices we make are shown, and how the culture of acceptable and not are bantered about. This book is a study of these themes, as well as the complexity of the relationships of women, especially mothers and daughters. The book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pueblo Neruda was quoted more than once in the book. This collection of love poems is an amalgamation of women he loved. This novel takes the name for the building, and I believe is the amalgamation of the many people we all represent to ourselves and the world.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, Middle Eastern, read around the world, reading

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam

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What would you do to be with your children?

This is the central question that Rehana Haque is faced with when widowed in East Pakistan.

The story opens with Rehana, freshly widowed, losing custody of her children to her brother and sister-in-law, who take them thousands of miles away from her. We learn that she will need more money to persuade the courts that she can care for them on her own.

Fast forward, we join a gathering of the 10th celebration of the children’s return to their mother. The children, son Sohail and daughter Maya are now university students. Rehana was able to get her children back, even though she never remarried. She was able to build a small home behind her large one, and rented the bigger home to a Hindi family. She built a community of women around her, and was comfortable and caring to others.   

The world around them is also changing. The elected Bengali official Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is arrested and barred from taking office by West Pakistani Punjabi and Pathans. A massacre was led by the West Pakistani to decimate the Bengali community they looked down on. Scores are forced to flee. This is when Rehana’s tenants allow their religious community onto the property to be safe from the massacre. Rehana – a non-Bengali originally from India – unhesitatingly opened her arms, and her limited resources, to make sure these refugees are feed.  

The arrest leads to students – including Maya and Sohail – joining the revolution. Sohail sees his mother’s love and undying devotion to him and requests her help for the rebels. She allows them to bring ammunition and people to stay and train in her yard. She gathers her friends to make blankets from silk saris for the rebels. She does all she can, without real thought to her safety, but always for her children’s. After a detonation that severely injured a rebel general, Sohail brings him to his mother for safety. Soon after, Maya is sent to Calcutta to write press releases for the movement and help at refugee camps.

As Rehana helps the general heal from his wounds, she finds herself attracted to him. She opens herself and shares her secrets of how far she has gone to protect her children. At this time, Sohail again asks his mother for intervention to gain the release of a man that married the girl Sohail loved. Rehana, unable to deny her child anything, goes to her brother and requests help. The tortured man she brings home, however, sickens her to what had been done to people. She flees to go to Maya. While there she ministers to those in the refugee camps, especially her former tenant’s wife.

Through all Rehana’s actions, she has been finding her voice, her desires, and her own strength. While this is a tale of a woman alone standing for herself, she also represents the spirit of Bangladesh. As the country is starting out, they too need to learn of their voice and strength. What both Rehana and Bangladesh will do for their children is almost anything. It is that love and understanding by everyone – those that sacrifice and those that are sacrificed – that brings about independence.  

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

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I enjoyed this book. How can you not when it starts of with a sarcastic octopus, who ultimately has the best lines in the entire book?  And I promise – no spoilers.

First we meet Marcellus – on day 1299 of his captivity. He is a giant Pacific octopus, exceptionally bright, bored, and aware his life span is coming to an end.

Next, we meet Tova, a 70 year old widow, who works evenings cleaning the Sowell Bay Aquarium each night where Marcellus lives. She has been working there since the death of her husband a few years earlier. She has been keeping herself busy, however, since the mysterious death of her 18 year old son decades before. Being busy helps her move forward in life.

Last, we meet Cameron. A 30 year old man that acts like a teenage boy. He has never taken responsibility or life too seriously, and can never catch a break to get ahead. Unemployed, Cameron awaits his friend while collecting the belongings that were thrown off a balcony while he was being thrown out of his girlfriend’s apartment.

These three beings will leave imprints on each other’s lives that will be remarkable.

As Tova and Marcellus are beginning to face the realities of where they are in life, they begin to have empathy toward each other. A simple act of kindness from Tova, who found Marcellus on the floor in the breakroom tangled in electrical cords, saved Marcellus’ life by getting him free. They become connected by this act, both physically and emotionally. Tova’s hand was entwined in the tentacles when freeing the cords. Suction marks remained after as proof of her being touched by someone or something else.

When Cameron receives a box from his Aunt of belongings from the mother that abandoned him when he was 9, Cameron believes he has found the identity of his unknown father. He leaves to find him and collect on 30 years of child support. When his luggage goes missing it is as if everything that tied him to what he was also went away.

Through a series of bad decisions, followed up by the genuine kindness of strangers, Cameron buys a crappy camper, makes some friends, and gets a job at the aquarium. As the lives and tales of the people he meets calm him, Cameron takes responsibilities seriously, and is even taught by Tova that every job you do is a job that is worth being done well.

As the end draws near for Marcellus – typical lifespan is 3-5 years or 1095 – 1825 days, Tova and Cameron learn from Marcellus how to take care of oneself and ones friends as that time draws near. It is with Marcellus’ help that Tova and Cameron learn lifechanging information, and why Tova made sure that Marcellus’ end was not in captivity.

As each person meets their next steps in life, it is the strength they received from each other that helps them move forward.