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Summary: sad sad sad
Review: I thought this book was so incessantly depressing that I did nopt even bother to finish the book, although I was curious to know how the book wrapped itself up. I could not bear the agony and sadness any longer. The book went into the garbage and I do not recommend it at all.
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Summary: Shapiro's full talents emerge in subtle, compelling account
Review: In earlier works, Dani Shapiro revealed glimpses of brilliance in her exploration of the complex tensions that either sunder or fortify family relationships. "Family History, a novel that compassionately exposes a family unraveling under the most extreme circumstances, is a masterwork. Subtle, unsettling and compelling, Shapiro's treatment of family crisis, adolescent confusion and personal reclamation entices, ensnares and enmeshes the reader. It is proof that an author can create a work of art that is deserves the largest audience without compromising the integrity of her craft. This novel signals Shapiro's triumphant emergence as an important interpreter of contemporary American life.
Through the eyes of her protagonist Rachel Jensen, Shapiro beckons us to enter the word of "otherness," where there exists a radical deviation from the normal, sustaining routines which compose many family histories. To Rachel, things that previously brought delight now "feel like a slap in the face" by people who "have not been swallowed up whole by the earth." Rachel asks, "How many women...have watched their world shatter...as if it were a glass globe?" How many marriages have seen the fissures of doubt become chasms of mistrust and disbelief? How many children, previously the source of life in the fabric of a family, have become unknowing perpetrators of unfixable destruction?
It is not only Kate Jensen, the anguished daughter of devoted parents Ned and Rachel, who is constricted in a "tourniquet of anger and guilt." A tragic accident involving Kate's infant brother sends the Jensen family into a vortex of familial disintegration. The Jensens face internal and external pressures; if it is not the explosive impact of Kate's assignation of responsibility, then it is the implosive consequences of guilt, remorse and doubt that ravage the once cohesive family. As their youngest son, Josh, recovers tentatively from his accident, Shapiro gives us no such assurances that Ned and Rachel will.
Reading "Family Life" is like navigating a fragile vessel through iceberg-strewn waters. Not only are there surface obstacles to overcome, beneath the surface loom huge dangers, most unknown, not only to the reader, but to Ned and Rachel as well. As do Ned and Rachel, we know something significant, something terribly altering, as occurred to their daughter during a summer stay at camp. But what was it? Is their daughter just in a transitory phase of adolescent angst or has something more ominous, more calamitous happened to her? Through Rachel's eyes, we witness the disappearance of trust, hope and love and wonder if they can ever be recaptured. To whom does a mother owe allegiance in a time of unprecedented crisis: her daughter or her husband? Are doubt and questioning the same things as disloyalty and disbelief?
If these questions are not absorbing enough, Shapiro also forces us to examine our own assumptions about family coherence. Is happiness illusory; can the Jensens capture what they once appeared to possess as a birthright? Is personal redemption worth the cost if the price is losing a husband or a daughter? How many of us have Solomonic wisdom regarding our own children; how much of their internal lives are unknown to us?
Cross-cutting narratives, enhanced by exquisite dialogue, give "Family History" enormous momentum. Shapiro never relinquishes her hold on us, never provides the easy answer, never permits her characters to become clichés. Instead, this magnificent writer prefers complexities to certainties, subtleties to the obvious, the unspoken to the said. The result is a novel of incredible psychological power, emotional intensity and moral integrity.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful, just awful!
Review: Ms. Shapiro can write decent prose which moves along, but everything else about this vapid story is terrible, just terrible. The characters are flat, one-dimensional nobodies. The two main ones, the parents, are nothing more than overgrown children themselves, playing at being grown-ups into their forties, still dependent on their own parents for financial and emotional sustenance, oddly passive as their family crumbles. They just need to grow up, not have a novel written about them -- they are too tepid to sustain its weight. There is nothing interesting about them; they are cardboard figures whom the author moves about the landscape without any interior motivation at all. They never discipline their child and then wonder why she goes off the rails. The mother keeps whining over and over again that she loves her children (though this is stated, rather than shown, as it would be in a good novel), so why are they turning out so terribly wrong, and are the other competitive Yuppie moms looking down on her as a result? One rapidly gets the impression that this woman would be equally concerned about a scratch in her Volvo. The main characters are the kind of people who live in a quaint Massachusetts village, but boycott the stores that spring up to serve them, and whose best friends are a noveau-riche couple -- he, a restaurant critic, she a partner at a "small, but prestigious, Boiston law firm". Oh, please. This thing reads like a parody of Yuppie life, but I am not entirely sure the author is actually that self-aware. Finally, this is one of those books that just stops...doesn't really have an ending, other than a deus ex machina effort to wrap things up which is not plausible and does not work. Avoid.
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Summary: Into the Arms of Strangers
Review: Perhaps the saddest thing any parent must face is when their child is in trouble and they don't know what to do. Suddenly the careful world these parents have either created or hoped to create is falling apart and it is as if they are trapped inside a snow globe watching their carefully constructed world fall apart. And not only are their lives and world changing but they are at the mercy of professionals who they must rely on to help them to literally help their child. There have been many books written on this subject but nowhere is the horror of this situation any greater than it is as found in Dani Shapiro's book, Family History. Long familiar with Shapiro's writings about families including her own memoir Slow Motion, I found this book to be a realistic look at a family going through what most parents are afraid to even think about.The Jensens are a somewhat typical family. The mother Rachel is a stay at home mom while her husband, once a fine painter, now teaches a prestigious private school in Massachusetts. Their daughter Katie, the apple of their eye, has always been a perfect child until the past summer when she attended sleep away camp and returned with all sorts of adolescent angst. Matters aren't helped any when she learns that Rachel is expecting a second child, something that none of them anticipated. And overnight it is as if Katie becomes somebody they don't even recognize. Almost as soon as her baby brother is born, Katie rejects him and sets into motion a tragedy that which will forever change the fabric of their family unit. Now her parents are forced to consider removing her from their home to a facility where she can be cared for and hopefully improve her outrageous behavior. Questioning everybody who cares for Katie as well as themselves, Rachel and her husband now must make some difficult decisions. And all the while, they are left to wonder if what is best for Katie is what has been suggested or if she wouldn't be better off at home with her loving parents. I read this book filled with the horror of what I would do or have done in the same situation. I found the book was very well written but there were times when I couldn't wait to finish it since I so empathized and sympathized with these parents even though I never experienced what they did when our child was a teenager. At times I even dreaded reading on and wanted to cover my eyes as if I was watching a horror movie peeking out from time to time and afraid to find out what happened next. This was not an easy read and I can't say I enjoyed it in the traditional sense that I enjoy other books. I did find this to be a most worthwhile and excellent book as these parents reached the depths of despair wondering if Katie would ever be all right and how they would also survive this together. I found this book to be well written and that it achieved its aim of presenting a family in trouble not only with their daughter but with the parents own social pressures, their own egos and even financial worries over how they can afford the expensive treatment indicated. This is the third book I've read by Dani Shapiro. The first book I read, Playing With Fire was a careful exploration of a character's rather unconventional relationship while the second book I read, Slow Motion, was the vivid memoir of Ms. Shapiro's own somewhat unorthodox relationship during college and the years after. Each of these books deals with the psychological makeup of individuals and the larger family unit. Each book in its own way has made me wonder about my own world and left me thinking long after I finished the books. I do recommend this book and the other titles I mentioned and look forward to reading more titles by this talented author.
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Summary: The Story of a Family
Review: Rachel and Ned meet, fall in love, get married, and have children. This is their story. Dani Shapiro takes us through their life and shows us how fragile family is. One day you think the worst thing that can happen to you or your children is a glass of spilled milk. The next day it's all different. This book carries you along like a raft down a river. The story isn't a pretty one, but it's definitely interesting and it's one you won't want to put down until you learn the truth. If you generally read about people and their lives, this is one that will capture you.
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Summary: Distorted Portrait
Review: Rachel Jensen appeared to have the ideal family setting. A former executive, she married Ned Jensen, a free lance artist whom she met in the mid-1980s while still a graduate student. She shared an interest in art with Ned, which led to a lasting relationship.
Their daughter, Kate, was conceived prior to their marriage and Rachel's mother, whom I found domineering and annoying did everything possible to try to control the young couple's lives. The Jensens moved from New York to rural North Hawthorne, New Hampshire so Ned could continue with his art and they could raise Kate in a small town.
In late 2001, Rachel joyfully discovers she is pregnant again. Saddened over Kate's deteriorating behavior, Rachel views the new baby as a hopeful promise. She and Ned hold off on telling Kate and plan on telling her together, but Rachel's mother upsets that apple cart as well. I didn't like the way Rachel's mother snooped each time she vistited her daughter and son-in-law; I didn't like the way she bossed Rachel around even after Rachel was herself a mother! I actually cheered when Rachel said to Ned, "Call a cab for my mother. She's leaving now," and Ned responding by saying he would drive her to the airport himself.
More unrest with Kate ensues. She witnesses the birth of her brother, Joshua and is traumatized when she believes Rachel's life is on the line. An ugly scene with Ned ensues and Kate flees into the night. More problems with her crop up and a devastating accident Kate has while caring for her brother send her into a tail spin.
A devastating series of accusations throughout the Jensen family take place and the family becomes an armed camp. Instead of the cheerful portraits Ned painted and photographs that grace their home, the Jensens become militants, armed against Kate. As her behavior deteriorates further, she is forcibly enrolled in a secure facility.
No promises are made and this book is not a "quick fix, feel good" formulaic series of plots and ending. Instead, it is a good hard look at actions, consequences and the very real no man's land of questions without answers.
I heartily recommend this book and would happily read more works by this author. I also like the book list included at the back of this book and Dani Shapiro now has me as an avid follower.
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Summary: Recommended
Review: The best books touch us physically in some way or another. I had a knot in my stomach as I read this book. I think any parent can identify with what this family is going through, as far as some of our greatest fears for our families.
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Summary: yet another one of these.
Review: the writing here is very good, but the problem is that the story is inherently uninteresting. do we really need another story about a dysfunctional family anchored by a self-indulgent mother?
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Summary: A DEEPLY MOVING, BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED STORY
Review: They were young when they met in a New York City café. Rachel is an aspiring art restorer, in the middle of graduate studies at New York University. Ned Jensen is an artist who dreams of a grand showing.
This chance meeting is to unalterably change their lives. Rachel says there was nothing dramatic about that moment. It was simply that "There was something between us. There you are. The thought came to me, bizarre and unbidden. I simply knew I had just met the man I was going to spend my life with."
Career plans are set aside when Rachel finds herself pregnant, and the couple decide to marry. Such a thought is unconscionable to Rachel's mother. After all, "Nice Jewish girls weren't supposed to marry artists. My choices were doctor, lawyer, banker."
This is not the first rift between mother and daughter. Mother is widowed, selfish, a product of Bergdorf Goodman and Elizabeth Arden. Rachel tends toward the bohemian and, as an only child, relishes the thought of becoming part of a larger family, Ned's family.
Following their wedding the pair settle in Ned's hometown of Hawthorne, Massachusetts, where his parents, successful realtors, have made it possible for them to buy a comfortable older home. With a barn behind the house in which he can paint, Ned signs on as an instructor at Hawthorne Academy.
And then Kate is born. She is a golden child. She flourishes and grows - a joy to all. She earns high grades in her school subjects and is elected captain of athletic teams. They are a happy family and Ned is a popular teacher, dreams of becoming an artist seemingly forgotten. His early ambition is not mentioned any more "It had faded away slowly, the way a painting itself fades when left too long in the sun. One day the image of Ned-the-artist was impossible to make out, and in his place was a high school teacher."
At the age of 13 Kate goes to summer camp; she is dreadfully missed by her parents. But when she returns from camp wearing a belly ring and a sullen expression, both Rachel and Ned sense something is very much amiss and they are right.
Instead of their sunny, easy-going daughter they are now living with a withdrawn, somewhat volatile young lady. When Rachel finds herself pregnant again at 39, Kate is at first solicitous. Yet Joshua's birth does not have the hoped for cohesive effect on their family life. On the contrary, Kate's dark moods increase and she becomes more rebellious. When she accidentally drops Joshua severely injuring him, she seems to lose complete control, eventually falsely accusing her father of abuse.
There seems to be no alternative but to institutionalize her for treatment. Ned, of course, loses his job at the Academy. Unable to bear the burden of Kate's behavior and false accusations he leaves Rachel, and takes a job selling real estate for his parents.
The deterioration of the Jensen family is related in flashback episodes; it is spare, compelling, and heartbreakingly authentic. When we first meet Rachel she is alone in the house, in bed, watching home videos of Kate's young life, unsuccessfully trying to determine what went wrong - when and where the break down of her family began.
There are no answers for her, as there are no pat answers for readers. Dani Shapiro has fashioned a deeply moving, beautifully crafted story. Once begun it is impossible to put down. - Gail Cooke
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Summary: Misnomers
Review: This book has very little to do with family history and far more to do with blame. A fitting title might have been Fault Lines as this is a family that breaks apart along very defined edges. The reader is left to wonder if the narrator is a trustworthy character as the book might better explain itself if she were holding back in the telling of her story. The author seems to be convinced that merely adding a grandmother creates a history. The one (very short) passage in which the parents talk about their own parents seems to be aimed at driving the cliched view that kids grow up to be their parents and the more they resist, the deeper they sink. The problem with this though, is that such an underlying sentiment disrupts the flow of the book. The grandmother character dominates each scene she is in without adding anything substantial to the story (other than being yet another cause of misfortune). Exactly what the reader wants more of (such as what has happened to this girl) is never satisfactorily dealt with. Just as the parents seem to have given up and chosen to run from their responsibilities, so too has the book fled any attempt to create a substantial emotional connection with the reader. If you find that within the first 20 pages you have not yet been drawn in, do not care what happens to the family or harbor an extreme dislike for any of the characters, then nothing further will take place to change your mind. While it is a very quick and easy read, I had higher expectations than what the story provided for.
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