She Treads Softly: The Happy Family

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

The Happy Family

The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler
6/4/21; 400 pages
HarperCollins

The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler is a so-so novel of suspense.

Beth's mother disappeared, walking out on and leaving her husband and ten years-old daughter behind. It is a hurt that Beth has struggled to overcome her whole life. Now, thirty years later, Beth, a divorced mother of two, has a successful career, many friends, and is happy. So when her mother, Alice, shows up again at her front door, wanting to rebuild a relationship with Beth, what could be better.

This is a slow-moving unrealistic novel of suspense. It is not a thriller. It is also painfully predictable, so there is no mystery. I kept reading, hoping I was wrong, but I knew everything that was going to happen long before the 30% mark. I do not have the gift of clairvoyance. The bones of an interesting novel are present but the potential wasn't brought to fruition. All I can say to Beth is: Goodness, please have some common sense. First lesson in life: believe your own eyes and instincts. Second lesson: do not believe everything said by a stranger who comes to your door.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.