My thoughts
I almost didn't finish this one. It was not a fast paced book at all. It was intense and did keep pulling at me. I just didn't want a DNF. I am glad I finished it now. The ending truly made up for so much. I did think this book was well written. The author put her heart and soul into it I'm sure. For anyone to say it is poorly written is just wrong. It's slow for the first several chapters but interesting.
This family is definitely troubled. A man who raised his twin children almost alone. Their mother died of cancer when they were very young. Before that, she was not really there. She was a soap star. She was away for most of their lives. I do believe she loved her children and her husband. I know he loved her. No doubt about it. Al was a good guy. He supported his wife's career even though he truly wanted her to stay home. Not to travel. To be his wife and their children's mother. But she wanted to be a star so he supported it. Al was truly a keeper.
This one starts out with the twins watching as their mother's body is lowered into the sea. She wanted to be buried that way and Al was doing just that.
This story takes you back and forth between when the twins, Viola and Sebastian, experience their mother's burial and when their mother is in California working on a soap opera. All that happens in those years is told. It's definitely a drama but not a bad one.
I think the author really did a good job. This one kept me reading. I never thought about putting it down. I did start to DNF it a couple of times. That was just crazy though. I highly recommend this book. It's got so much to keep you reading. It's family. It's drama. It's twin crazy. A mom and dad problem. A soap opera. A love between an older man and younger woman. Actually that is twice. Al is several years older than Susan. But it seemed like their love was at first sight, in a way. Al really flipped over her. Susan's sister, Sadie, didn't much like Al but she was crazy over the twins.
The last few chapters of this one made me weep. I was crying so hard while reading about Susan's death. How the twins were with her while she was sick. How her son seemed to love his mom more than anything. They didn't know their mom was a star. They had no idea she was ever in a soap opera.
Yes this book started out a bit slow but it did grow on me. I am glad I read it. I liked the characters. Mostly. I was angry at Susan for leaving her family for a soap opera but that was what she wanted. Her career. She had a right to do that. Her children could be selfish but that was understandable too. They lost their mother at such a young age. This is one to make you think...
A debut novel. I give this author a lot of credit for writing such a heartfelt story.
Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC.
4 stars.
About
A vibrant debut and powerful meditation on family, motherhood, and the cost of holding on to your dreams, reminiscent of Ann Napolitano.
In New England, Susan Bliss is a young mother married to a professor.
In LA, Susan Byrne stars in a soap opera beloved coast to coast.
Decades after she’s gone, her twins have no idea of their mother’s fame. But the past can’t stay hidden forever.
It’s 1997, and snow is blanketing a New England beach. Two befuddled seven-year-olds watch as their mother’s body is tipped overboard a crumbling boat. A Viking funeral, followed by a raucous wake. A send-off fit for soap opera Susan Bliss.
Fifteen years earlier, Susan is a blazing, beautiful young woman, passionate about her art. It’s impossible not to fall in love with her, and so Alcott, a practical professor, does—hopelessly. And so begins the love story of Susan’s two-paneled an unconventional, jetlag-filled arrangement that takes her back and forth between her life in New England as a wife and mother to young twins to the bright lights of Los Angeles, where she becomes the beloved star of a daytime soap.
In the present, Susan’s twins grow up in the shadow of her all-consuming absence. Sebastian, a sensitive artist, cleaves to her memory, fascinated with the artifacts of her starry past. Viola, resentful of her mother’s torn allegiances, distances herself from the memories of her. But when Viola runs into her mother’s old costar Orson Grey—now a renowned Hollywood star—she finds herself falling deeply in love with him and begins to put together the pieces of a mother she never really knew.
Sharp, assured, and beautifully written, Family Drama is a story told in double-helix, with intertwined timelines that explore the different versions of ourselves we share with the world and with each other.
In New England, Susan Bliss is a young mother married to a professor.
In LA, Susan Byrne stars in a soap opera beloved coast to coast.
Decades after she’s gone, her twins have no idea of their mother’s fame. But the past can’t stay hidden forever.
It’s 1997, and snow is blanketing a New England beach. Two befuddled seven-year-olds watch as their mother’s body is tipped overboard a crumbling boat. A Viking funeral, followed by a raucous wake. A send-off fit for soap opera Susan Bliss.
Fifteen years earlier, Susan is a blazing, beautiful young woman, passionate about her art. It’s impossible not to fall in love with her, and so Alcott, a practical professor, does—hopelessly. And so begins the love story of Susan’s two-paneled an unconventional, jetlag-filled arrangement that takes her back and forth between her life in New England as a wife and mother to young twins to the bright lights of Los Angeles, where she becomes the beloved star of a daytime soap.
In the present, Susan’s twins grow up in the shadow of her all-consuming absence. Sebastian, a sensitive artist, cleaves to her memory, fascinated with the artifacts of her starry past. Viola, resentful of her mother’s torn allegiances, distances herself from the memories of her. But when Viola runs into her mother’s old costar Orson Grey—now a renowned Hollywood star—she finds herself falling deeply in love with him and begins to put together the pieces of a mother she never really knew.
Sharp, assured, and beautifully written, Family Drama is a story told in double-helix, with intertwined timelines that explore the different versions of ourselves we share with the world and with each other.
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