Set against the tragic events of the Oklahoma City bombings, Breaking and Entering follows Christian/Jewish couple Louise and Richard Shapiro as they move from California to rural Michigan with their daughter Molly in an attempt to save their marriage. They find their core beliefs about life and love tested as school counselor Louise's students blame Satan for their homosexuality while Richard's new buddies gather arms to defend themselves against enemies at home and abroad. Pollack's America is divided and splintered, yet she writes with hope and humor...Breaking and Entering challenges the stereotypes we hold about our fellow Americans, reminding us of the unexpected bonds that can form across the divide between so-called Red and Blue states.
Breaking and Entering: A Novel
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Review
Eileen Pollack's new novel, "Breaking and Entering," takes place in rural Michigan in 1995 -- the epicenter and high point of the militia movement, before increased scrutiny and revulsion at the Oklahoma City bombing put some militia groups out of business and sent others underground. (Though not a militiaman, the bomber Timothy McVeigh attended their meetings and spent time on a Michigan farm with his fellow conspirator Terry Nichols.) The Oklahoma City attack comes about a third of the way through Pollack's book, a real-world event that informs and shadows the fictional ones. ...Quite a lot of bad things happen in "Breaking and Entering." Pollack is an engaging writer with a first-rate eye for the telling sociological detail.... Since the author's intent is to explore intolerance, hatred and evil, it is not enough that these forces merely simmer and self-perpetuate. The stakes are raised, and escalating consequences play out. ...--Jean Thompson, The New York Times Book Review
A compassionate, humorous new novel about the ambiguities of modern life. After his patient commits suicide, a shattered Richard Shapiro and his wife, Louise, both therapists, move from upscale, liberal Marin County, California, to a rural Michigan village in 1995. But so much for the great escape: Louise takes up with a magnetic married minister, and Richard befriends members of the local militia, which has ties to the Oklahoma City bomber. Set against the backdrop of a divided America, Breaking and Entering by Eileen Pollack is a novel laced with compassion, humor and wisdom about the ambiguities of modern life. --Lynn Schnurnberger, More Magazine
Louise Shapiro is thoroughly beset in this thorny, lucid novel. Her bad luck begins in California, where her husband abandons his psychology practice and takes a job in a rural Michigan prison. Louise struggles to adjust to the heartland, which seems overpopulated with religious nuts and militia members. Her husband drifts away into a rebellious, gun-toting fugue, and the lover she takes becomes remote in his own way. ... Her increasingly nuanced view of the sociopolitical divide is reflected in Pollack's sensitive portrayals of both liberal Louise and her ilk, and their conservative counterparts. Weaving the personal with the political, Pollack... creates an encompassing haze of dissatisfaction and misdirected passion. Despite the unrelenting misfortune, though, the tone is more solemn than dark; there's a beautiful contemplativeness, and a believable sense of redemption in the end. --Publisher's Weekly
An exploration of Tolstoy's dictum about unhappy families....A rich and satisfying novel that explores in a significant way contemporary issues of family, religion and politics.--Kirkus Review
A compassionate, humorous new novel about the ambiguities of modern life. After his patient commits suicide, a shattered Richard Shapiro and his wife, Louise, both therapists, move from upscale, liberal Marin County, California, to a rural Michigan village in 1995. But so much for the great escape: Louise takes up with a magnetic married minister, and Richard befriends members of the local militia, which has ties to the Oklahoma City bomber. Set against the backdrop of a divided America, Breaking and Entering by Eileen Pollack is a novel laced with compassion, humor and wisdom about the ambiguities of modern life. --Lynn Schnurnberger, More Magazine
Louise Shapiro is thoroughly beset in this thorny, lucid novel. Her bad luck begins in California, where her husband abandons his psychology practice and takes a job in a rural Michigan prison. Louise struggles to adjust to the heartland, which seems overpopulated with religious nuts and militia members. Her husband drifts away into a rebellious, gun-toting fugue, and the lover she takes becomes remote in his own way. ... Her increasingly nuanced view of the sociopolitical divide is reflected in Pollack's sensitive portrayals of both liberal Louise and her ilk, and their conservative counterparts. Weaving the personal with the political, Pollack... creates an encompassing haze of dissatisfaction and misdirected passion. Despite the unrelenting misfortune, though, the tone is more solemn than dark; there's a beautiful contemplativeness, and a believable sense of redemption in the end. --Publisher's Weekly
An exploration of Tolstoy's dictum about unhappy families....A rich and satisfying novel that explores in a significant way contemporary issues of family, religion and politics.--Kirkus Review
Review
"...a very real accomplishment--an admirable, serious, and important novel of ideas that does not neglect characters." (Antonya Nelson )
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Eileen Pollack's BREAKING AND ENTERING explores what it means to live among people whose differences seem like barriers to understanding. Louise and Richard Shapiro are happy living in San Francisco until tragic circumstances destroy their illusions. Shattered by a patient's suicide, Richard decides to take a job as a psychologist at a prison in central Michigan, and Louise reluctantly goes along with the move. She hopes to salvage the remains of their disintegrating marriage and find a safe place to raise their 6-year-old daughter, Molly. What they find in Michigan, however, are people whose attitudes and values are completely different from their own. Their neighbors are members of the same militia group that spawned Timothy McVeigh, the local church is passing out grotesque flyers against abortion, the school principal is homophobic, and both racism and anti-Semitism are preached on the local radio station. This is not an easy environment for a liberal Jew and his agnostic wife.
BREAKING AND ENTERING is set in 1995, around the same time McVeigh and his cohorts bomb the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Pollack's crisply written story is told from multiple perspectives, giving us insight into how her many characters see the world around them, but also leaving us a little lost in trying to figure out whom to trust. That, of course, is the point. It's not easy to figure out whom to trust in this world or ours. Do we judge people by the company they keep, by the books they read, by the WWJD bracelets they wear, by how tolerant they are (or aren't) of people who believe different things? Are the people the Shapiros meet dangerous . . . or just different? Can you always tell when someone is a monster, or can banality be deceiving?
The story itself is really a "fish out of water" tale. Richard, the only Jew among his new neighbors and co-workers, finds himself drawn to their world of guns and survivalist rhetoric, as if the raw manliness of such things makes him feel more in control of the uncontrollable. Louise, who finds a temporary job as a school counselor, is shocked to learn that three of the five biology teachers are teaching their students creationism. She is both repulsed and frightened by the guns, the evangelical proselytizing, and the anti-government propaganda. As if in reaction, she finds herself fantasizing about the charismatic Unitarian minister she meets in McDonalds.
Near the end of the novel, Louise says, "In many ways it's worse not to know whether the dangers you face are justified or imagined. Mutual paranoia can be the deadliest risk of all." This is a novel about the risks we all take as we live our lives. The conservative Christian world of central Michigan is certainly a far cry from the liberalism of California. What Louise learns by the end of the novel is that it's our assumptions that prevent us from seeing people as they truly are. Was Timothy McVeigh a murderer because he was a believer in militias and constitutional conservatism? Or is it possible to hold those views and still be against the murder of children?
Overall, this is a compelling and thoughtful novel. Pollack writes in present tense, which can be a bit off-putting (this is a very popular style these days, so you may not find it as artificial as I do). The novel does feel a bit long, and sometimes I did wonder how so many bad things could happen to these two people. But the ending worked for me, and I like Pollack's message about not judging a book by its cover. It's certainly a lesson worth learning.
BREAKING AND ENTERING is set in 1995, around the same time McVeigh and his cohorts bomb the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Pollack's crisply written story is told from multiple perspectives, giving us insight into how her many characters see the world around them, but also leaving us a little lost in trying to figure out whom to trust. That, of course, is the point. It's not easy to figure out whom to trust in this world or ours. Do we judge people by the company they keep, by the books they read, by the WWJD bracelets they wear, by how tolerant they are (or aren't) of people who believe different things? Are the people the Shapiros meet dangerous . . . or just different? Can you always tell when someone is a monster, or can banality be deceiving?
The story itself is really a "fish out of water" tale. Richard, the only Jew among his new neighbors and co-workers, finds himself drawn to their world of guns and survivalist rhetoric, as if the raw manliness of such things makes him feel more in control of the uncontrollable. Louise, who finds a temporary job as a school counselor, is shocked to learn that three of the five biology teachers are teaching their students creationism. She is both repulsed and frightened by the guns, the evangelical proselytizing, and the anti-government propaganda. As if in reaction, she finds herself fantasizing about the charismatic Unitarian minister she meets in McDonalds.
Near the end of the novel, Louise says, "In many ways it's worse not to know whether the dangers you face are justified or imagined. Mutual paranoia can be the deadliest risk of all." This is a novel about the risks we all take as we live our lives. The conservative Christian world of central Michigan is certainly a far cry from the liberalism of California. What Louise learns by the end of the novel is that it's our assumptions that prevent us from seeing people as they truly are. Was Timothy McVeigh a murderer because he was a believer in militias and constitutional conservatism? Or is it possible to hold those views and still be against the murder of children?
Overall, this is a compelling and thoughtful novel. Pollack writes in present tense, which can be a bit off-putting (this is a very popular style these days, so you may not find it as artificial as I do). The novel does feel a bit long, and sometimes I did wonder how so many bad things could happen to these two people. But the ending worked for me, and I like Pollack's message about not judging a book by its cover. It's certainly a lesson worth learning.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Noni
Format:Paperback
I find Breaking and Entering absolutely compelling beginning to end. It's lucid, drama-packed, insightful, and charged. I highly recommend this novel.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is thought-provoking, compelling, insightful, funny, suspenseful, romantic, more than anyone could wish for in a novel. The topics are broad, and the author covers them even-handedly. Nothing is as it seems: each of us is capable of the travesties we accuse so readily in others. And yet there is hope. Highly recommended.
