First published 2002
Enid Lambert has spent nearly fifty years as a wife and mother. Now she wants some fun. Her husband Alfred battles Parkinson's disease while their three adult children struggle with their own disasters. Gary, the eldest, works as a portfolio manager but fights clinical depression while trying to convince his wife and himself that he's fine. Chip, the middle son, lost his academic position and fails badly at his new career. Denise, the youngest daughter, ended a terrible marriage only to begin an affair with a married man. Enid dreams of gathering her broken family for one final Christmas together. The novel spans from the Midwest at midcentury to modern Wall Street and Eastern Europe. Old values of civic duty and sexual restraint crash against contemporary realities of surveillance technology, distant parenting, self-administered therapy, and global capitalism. This story captures a family's attempt to reconnect across the gap between generations and worldviews.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, generational-conflict, redemption
Setting: Eastern Europe, Midwest, Wall Street
Period: Midcentury, Modern
775 pages · Hardcover · Chivers
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness