A Friend of the Family

Although I usually prefer novels which tell one particular story, often along with a few subplots, the voice of the narrator is so strong and engaging that I stayed interested from beginning to end. This novel, instead, tells a few compelling stories and eventually gets back to what's presented at the beginning. The author does a great job in writing from a man's perspective and it's very convincing--unlike a novel I read a few months ago in which it was very clear from the first two pages that the man who wrote it couldn't make his female narrator believable.

This book was good, but... strange. While there was a general theme to the story, and a few twists at the end, it was almost like it didn't have that much of a plot. But that actually kind of worked. It read like a guy was personally telling you the story of his life, so it meandered a little bit and didn't always seem like it was leading anywhere. Even though it didn't seem like it was going anywhere at times, the ending definitely shows that there was a point to it all.Something I loved about this book is the amazing characterization. The characters seemed very real. Honestly, I didn't even really like any of them that much, because they each had many flaws, but the beauty of that is that the characters come off as so much more human. This story could have been real life and I wouldn't have known the difference, that's how real they seemed to me. I even actively disliked the main character, but I don't think we were really supposed to like him, so seeing the story from his perspective was a really neat stylistic choice that was interesting and different.I gave this book four stars instead of five is because I felt that the ending was kind of strange. It seemed oddly unfinished, but again I think it was a stylistic choice to make the characters seem more human -- real people's lives continue on after the story ends, while most novel characters' stories just sort of stop. There was also a key part of the story that was revealed in the end that was just not as shocking as it could've been, it just seemed kind of arbitrary at that point. And the other big moment at the end had been hinted to so much throughout the entire thing that it wasn't surprising at all. I also wish that the main character's marriage got resolved a little bit more. Their marital troubles are confusing and the ending didn't really clear it up at all, although again that's possibly a stylistic choice because that's the way real life goes. But I don't think that you can just blame all bad parts of a novel on "stylistic choices" -- at some point, you have to make the reader happy, and I wish that there had been a bit more resolution to it all in general.One last thing that I want to mention is that this book was very difficult to read for me. The story takes place in so many different points in time all at once (which does accurately represent the human brain, but it damn confusing) and I found myself getting lost and not understanding when certain events were taking place. By the end, I had gotten used to it and figured it all out, but I was still getting confused up until at least halfway through the book, and it wasn't confused in a good way, I just think that the connections between the main story and the flashbacks were poorly written.Even though I did have a few problems with this novel, over all it was a great read. I thought that the narration was very interesting, and that the story covered topics I'd never read about before, especially from that perspective.

I absolutely loved this book. It's a struggle for every parent -- how far should you intervene in your children's lives, especially when you fear they're making choices that will destroy their futures. The central character, Dr. Pete, is a family practice doctor with a son who dropped out of college to pursue a career as an artist and who then becomes involved with the 30-year-old daughter of Dr. Pete's best friend, who as teenager killed her prematurely delivered baby in a bathroom stall. And by the way, Dr. Pete has also never gotten over the crush he's had on his best friend's wife since they all met in college. To make matters worse, he's facing a medical malpractice suit because a young woman under his care died. That's quite a dramatic stew -- and Grodstein explores it all with wonderful sophistication and not the least bit of melodrama. She does an amazing job examining all the issues -- whether someone who's made a horrible mistake can ever redeem their lives and how much parents should interfere in their children's lives without running the risk of just making everything worse. I loved her earlier novel,  Reproduction is the Flaw of Love (Delta Fiction) , which is also told from a man's perspective. She does a great job of getting inside men's heads. (There was only minor detail she got wrong, which I think most men would know. While shooting around a basketball, Dr. Pete -- who I think is supposed to be about 6 feet 2 -- dunks. That's not something most guys of that height, and especially those in their early 50s as Dr. Pete is, could do.)

Well-written, even when I realized the plot was really going nowhere. I still enjoyed reading it. Some of the reviews mentioned a Hitchcock feel which I didn't really get from it as much, although I supposed I can see how the could be perceived. There's enough mystery to keep one interested without being edge-of-your-seat. The climax felt predictable and didn't change much about how I felt about the story. Again, with all of that said, the character development and the writing in general kept me more than mildly interested for sure. I was continually surprised to find that it is written by a woman--it seems like a very believable male perspective.

Pete Dizinoff is a successful doctor. He has a comfortable home in New Jersey, a warm, loving wife, Elaine, who teaches literature at a local college, and good colleagues and friends. Since Elaine's recovery from breast cancer he has few worries - until the couple's son, Alec, drops out of college and takes up with Laura, the elder daughter of Pete's close friend and fellow-doctor Joe. While Elaine is prepared to let Alec do as he likes, Pete becomes obsessed with Alec returning to college and giving up Laura - who is not only several years Alec's senior but many years before did something which Pete remains horrified by. And Pete's obsession, as we see from 'flashforwards' at the start of the book, has terrible consequences...Grodstein has pulled off a remarkable success in this book. Pete is not a particularly likeable character - he is controlling, blinkered (he's astonished when he realizes he actually likes art), pugnacious and lacks empathy - and yet he tells a very compelling story. As with Grodstein's third book 'The Invention of Everything' (about which I now think I was a bit unfair) 'A Friend of the Family' is irresistibly readable. Moreover, Grodstein writes very convincingly as a middle-aged man - which is not easy for a woman writer to do! The story is an intriguing one, particularly as Grodstein doesn't judge the characters, but shows us that Pete, Elaine, Alec and Laura all have viable viewpoints. And the way that Grodstein charted Pete's gradual fall into irrationality - and its terrible consequences on his work as well as his home life - reminded me of plays such as Arthur Miller's 'A View from the Bridge' or 'All My Sons', in which a seemingly happy family implodes. I was particularly impressed, too, with how Grodstein made me feel compassion for Pete even though I didn't like him much and rather sympathized with his son's longing to escape him.For me, the only problem really was the book's later stages - without giving too much away I thought they were rushed, and that Laura in particular wasn't given enough time to speak for herself. I wondered whether the book would perhaps have been even stronger if Grodstein had told the story from Laura's point of view as well as Pete's - or at least given her her own chapter. I also felt that Pete did something in the final section that changed him from an intemperate and self-justifying person into someone rather more sinister - and I'm not sure that was what Grodstein intended. I ended up feeling that Grodstein may have been trying to tackle more big issues - particularly as involved Laura, whose back story definitely needed more space - than she gave herself room for.Nevertheless, I thought in many ways the book was excellent - for its readability, some very good dialogue, some lovely descriptive writing (the scene where Pete momentarily finds calm at MOMA in front of a Rousseau painting of a lion was wonderful), its bravery in tackling difficult subjects and the author's refusal to 'take sides'. It's definitely made me want to read Grodstein's most recent novel, and re-read 'The Invention of Everything'. And I hope she continues to write.

This novel of modern literary fiction is a cerebral thriller of sorts where the `big reveal' at the end is sign-posted very clearly right from the start. We know something terrible has happened but we don't find out exactly what until the last dozen pages or so. The story uses the common flashback/flash-forward device so prevalent these days. Ultimately the ending was a bit of let-down though the quality of the writing forces up the overall impression.Dr Pete Dizinoff is an internist (more or less the same a GP in the United Kingdom) in his early 50s in an upper middle class area of New Jersey. He's happily married, successful and fulfilled at work, with a close circle of friends, an active social life and a rosy future. The problem is his 20-year-old son and only child, Alec, who was conceived after a long period of fertility problems and, as a result, is cherished to, perhaps, an unhealthy degree. Alec has not lived up to his father's expectations. When Alec starts a relationship with Laura, the 30-year-old daughter of Pete's best friend (Joe), Pete struggles to cope. Laura is a woman with a shady past, to put it mildly.As the story progresses we learn about Pete's childhood, his long relationship with Joe (and Joe's wife, Iris), his marriage, the early years as Alec is growing up and about Laura's past. With each large chunk of flashback, we get a little more of the present day story.Grodstein builds the tension very well. The novel is, in its own way, something of a page-turner. We can see something bad is coming over the hill but we're not sure exactly what. The problem, for me, is that (and I don't want to spoil it for anyone) when the denouement arrives it is something of an anti-climax. We know from the first couple of pages that Pete's life collapses around him, as he loses his wife, son and work colleagues, so we're led to believe that whatever it is that he does or what happens to him must be really terrible, something shocking, but when we get there it's a bit of a let-down. I can't help but feel Grodstein should have put a bit more thought into this part of the book.It's well written, as noted. The story keeps you interested. The characters are, for the most part, believable. As a doctor, I found the medical aspects of the story quite entertaining. In all, though, I don't think it was as good as it could have been.6/10

I did not really care for any of these people, didn't care for them, and didn't care for what happened to them.