Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Jack Edson:
So many great fiction books include an incident that takes place at the family Thanksgiving Dinner, but A. M. Homes’ great new novel goes a step further as it frames its story with two Thanksgiving Dinners. And let me tell you, a lot happens to all of the members of the Silver family between those two very different celebrations.
For Harold Silver, his well-ordered world was turned upside-down and the events that followed the first Thanksgiving Dinner surely would have destroyed a lesser man. Harold’s crazy brother George caught him in bed with George’s wife Jane, and then George really went nuts and killed Jane right in front of Harold. This was after Harold crashed into the car of another family, killing the parents and leaving their son, Ricardo, an orphan. When Harold’s wife heard about her husband and sister-in-law getting caught in bed, she immediately dumped Harold, but Harold met this intriguing woman in the grocery department of the local supermarket, and let’s say, things really start to get interesting.
Harold’s speciality is teaching about our former president, Richard M. Nixon. We learn that Nixon was a writer of fiction and his daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower hires Harold to go through several boxes of papers to evaluate her father’s writings. This becomes difficult for Harold to accomplish because suddenly, he has his newly orphaned niece and nephew, Ashley and Nate, to care for. Soon, Ashley and Nate start to pressure Harold to adopt Ricardo, the little boy whose parents were killed by their deranged father, George. Do not worry about George, because he is sent to an experimental prison, which is sort of like a men’s wilderness campground. In fact, do not waste any of your sympathy on George whatsoever, for reasons you will discover when you read this book.
This book is full of wild fictional invention, but, it is wild stuff that could happen, or wild stuff that the reader might wish to happen in their own lives. At least a little of it anyway.
The Silver family is Jewish, and even though none of them practices the faith much, Nathan is turning thirteen, so the question of a bar mitzvah comes up. Should they hire The Sisterhood to prepare sandwiches afterward, as Harold’s mother did at this big day, or, perhaps they could do something else. How about a trip for everyone to South Africa, to the small village, Nateville, that Nate has been pretty much supporting with donations from his rich kid friends at his exclusive private school? That sounds more interesting than a luncheon with sandwiches, except if your car gets hijacked by robbers on the way to the airport after the African celebration is over.
There is a constant interaction between “the mundane” and “the extraordinary” in this book and it will certainly keep you engaged in the story and thinking about how to eliminate “mundane” and replace it with “extraordinary” in your own life. The situations are so inventive: a suburban couples nude laser tag game; a phone call from Julie Nixon Eisenhower; a serious request from Ricardo to be circumcised after the bar mitzvah party in South Africa.
After reading this book, who would choose the mundane over the extraordinary? And, if you, like the Silver family, make a few mistakes on this journey, as these things tend to happen, we can invoke the title and hope, “may we be forgiven.”
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