Erik Fassnacht

A bit depressing but a very good portrayal of a very dysfunctional family trying to figure it out and always seeming to come up a bit short.

A bit depressing but a very good portrayal of a very dysfunctional family trying to figure it out and always seeming to come up a bit short.

Advance reader copy. I found this book overly long and rambling at times. The story is told from the viewpoints of different family members and I often found the chapters to be so unrelated that they didn't seem to be from the same book. I found Barkley to be the most interesting character and wanted to learn more about his life, often skimming other chapters in favor of those about him. This book seemed disjointed and I would not recommend it to friends or my book club.

MFA candidate Franzen-izes his life into a semiautobiographical Epic Family Saga. Sexism and pretentious metaphors abound. I rolled my eyes a dozen times in the first chapter alone. Breasts are described as juggernauts. I just couldn't find a redeeming quality. This book isn't terrible in a vacuum but it has been done before, hundreds of times, and this incarnation says nothing new.