Early Leaving: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Early Leaving
Review: A friend gave me "Early Leaving" after she met Judy Goldman, the author, and I still can't stop thinking about this novel that to me is reminiscent of "Unless" by the late Carol Shields, a Pulitzer Prize winner.
The first page of "Early Leaving" drew me in and I could not stop reading. Within a few paragraphs, the reader learns that a young man named Early will be sentenced the next day for a murder he committed hours after he was the graduation speaker at his prep school. Most of the rest of the book is about his life up to this point, and the final bit goes beyond the sentencing.
How did this young man, who is idealized by his mother, end up killing someone?
The story is told by his mother, who believes her son to be pure in his soul, almost without fault, although she wishes he would disassociate himself from his best friend; she thinks her husband pushes Early too much to achieve. Appearances matter greatly.
Goldman does not spoon feed her readers. She leaves us to draw our own conculusions about what's really going on, as Shields did during so much of "Unless," when a mother could not understand why her eldest daughter sat for months, without speaking, on a corner in Toronto, the word "Goodness" on a sign around her neck.
In "Early Leaving," you wonder what the father is really like and how he sees their son. What is Early really doing when his mother sees him as a young boy cradling a bird in his hand. Is he being gentle, as his mother views the scene, or has he killed the bird? What does Early think and feel about the pressures at home, and just how much frustration and anger is he holding inside? His mother certainly doesn't know, and since we read only her point of view, we must come to our own conclusions about all three of these people.
I've known so many parents who see their children primarily as extensions of themselves, and never really know them as human beings. So few of us know what is inside another person. I didn't finish the book depressed, but more in a thoughtful mode about what really happened and the dynamics in this family and how things might have been different. There are lessons to be learned, but they certainly are not hammered home here.
I believe so much in this book that this is the first review I've written on Amazon. I've bought extra copies to give to friends, because I don't want it to join the thousands of books that are published each year only to disappear into remainder bins.
"Early Reading" deserves to be read. Judy Goldman is a fine, fine writer.


Rating:
Summary: A book for current or future parents
Review: Ask any parent to list their greatest fears for their children, and seeing a child carted off to jail for murder is probably not one of them. That is for good reason -- while most of us realize that there may be aspects of how we parent that may be flawed, overall we are optimistic about how our children will turn out. And we are honestly surprised if and when things go wrong. This novel does a wonderful job of taking that scenario -- a son on a bright, upward path who stumbles into tragedy -- and explores what brought him to that point. Goldman sorts through Early's upbringing and family ties, and holds up various bits and pieces for our collective review -- some we can discard, some we are not sure about, and others may reverberate powerfully. But it is no easy task to simply assign blame or grant forgiveness. This book shies away from easy lessons. We are instead encouraged to look beyond the parent-child relationship and pay closer attention to the parent-parent-child one. It should be on all of our reading lists.

Rating:
Summary: What keeps you up at night?
Review: I am a new, first-time mom and I am so glad I carved out the time to read Early Leaving. This wonderful yet chilling book should be required reading for all parents. Once I got into it (on page one), I couldn't put it down.

Judy Goldman, in her graceful, poetic style, has created a world I feel I could easily stray into while raising my child(ren). This world features a mother who loves her son so much she does everything she can to keep every aspect of his life happy and trouble-free. We are trained to do this with our infants; how do we learn to put on the brakes once our children are older? With that question in mind I feel it would have been predictable for Goldman to write about an overindulgent, overprotective mother who singlehandedly dooms her child to a lifetime on the psychologist's couch. Instead, she shows us how complicated, entwining and unpredictable families and child-rearing can be. Kathryne's relationship with her husband Peter; Peter's relationship with their child Early; Early's relationship with his best friend Chip. Each of these bonds (and more) exert influence in the formation of a person. None is the sole cause of who a person becomes, and yet none is innocent.

Judy Goldman is a wise guide helping us navigate the complex emotional story Kathryne narrates. Rather than settle for easy answers, Goldman poses thoughtful questions to the end. This is why I believe all parents should read this book (and why I have already recommended it to all the young parents I know). We are given the opportunity to study another family's life under a microscope, thus providing us with a mirror or a foil for our own decisions.

Rating:
Summary: Too little substance
Review: I thought, given the premise of this book, that it would reveal more about the character of Early. The reader knows all there is to know about his mother, her background, her marriage and her parenting skills. Frankly, I was surprised to learn that Early was a remarkably good student and apparently considered to be a steadying influence by his peers. There were too many "dead ends" in this book for me - the letter written by Early with gay incidents is one; another is why the father was so uninvolved. I was disappointed in this book.

Rating:
Summary: This is a page-turner!
Review: This is one of the best books I've read all year. On page one, the reader finds out that a young man from a privileged family has been convicted of murder. It is almost impossible to stop reading from that point on. This is not a murder mystery though; it's a perceptive, moving narrative about parenting and marriage. There are incredible insights on every page; you'll want to put stars in the margins next to all the beautiful descriptive details. Although Early Leaving might be thought of as a woman's book, I would recommend it to anyone interested in stories about family -- how entangled and complex those relationships can be.