Customer Reviews

The Embers: A Novel

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hyatt Bass has constructed a smart, sharp novel of a troubled family that is as remarkable for what it doesn't say as much as for what it does say. There was a point toward the end of the book where the father, Joe, shows his daughter, Emily, a picture from when she was younger - and this was an "ah" moment for me. With no elaboration, the author explained a large portion of the storyline. I like it that it was assumed that the average reader would be smart enough to extrapolate all that was necessary. Told from both the past and present, the story unfolded in an unhurried manner, and the characters were all drawn realistically, with human and flawed characteristics. There is a poem in the book and Bass describes the words as having "deceptive simplicity." The phrase could be used to describe this book. Yesterday, after reading the last words, I set the book aside and considered the characters, their relationships, and the fitting symbolism of the title. I'm still thinking about it today. The writing was excellent, and I hope to read more from this author in the future.

I am unsure of how to begin this review because I am still trying to wrap my head around my feelings about The Embers. The thing is, I liked the book. I REALLY liked the book, even more than I expected to - but I'm not sure why. I can say with absolute certainty that one of the reasons the book spoke to me so much was Bass' beautiful writing. She definitely has an amazing talent at crafting passages and conversations between characters that draw the reader in and really make you think. Another reason I think I enjoyed the book so much was because of my difficulty in parting with it for any length of time. Something about the story and the characters just grabbed me and didn't let go.

Here's the weird part: I didn't like any of the characters, and the entire time I was reading this novel I kept thinking to myself, "these people are so annoying. I should be hating this book right now, but I'm not. Why is that?!" The three main characters were all so completely self-absorbed, so unaware of the world around them, and I had a really difficult time with all three of them. I honestly cannot think of another book I've read recently where I so detested the characters but still enjoyed the book, so it's really a tribute to Bass's phenomenal writing and story telling abilities that made me come away with a deep appreciation for this novel.

I always have a soft spot in my heart for books that go back and forth between time periods - if it's done well, this effect can really make a huge impact on the reader. The Embers is an example of this - I never felt lost or confused while reading the book, even though it was jumping between time periods and different characters' points of view. I really can't say enough about Hyatt Bass here - she truly has put together a stunning debut, with flawed but (sadly) realistic characters and an interesting, fast-moving plot. There was a lot I loved about the book, even though I'm having a difficult time articulating the specifics right now. :) Just know that I couldn't put it down, and I am anxiously awaiting something new from Ms. Bass!

This book made me really glad I joined the Vine program. A story about a family is usually a winning plot line: either the family is dysfunctional, or seemingly perfect, and then a crisis or tragedy strikes. Either the family pulls together and makes it, or is torn apart. Some of these stories have become classics, like Judith Guest's Ordinary People. In this story, we learn at the very beginning that there has already been tragedy. Thomas, the son, has died, and Joe and Laura, the parents, are now divorced. I don't give spoilers, you can read those in some of the other reviews here. This family had problems even before these major events. Emily, the daughter, was flunking out of school, using drugs, and having an affair with a man 20 years older. Even after she straightens out and goes to law school, she has trouble getting along with her mother, accusing her of meddling, trying to make decisions for her, and putting her down. As a daughter, I often felt the same way, but Laura, the mother doesn't understand. These are not her intentions at all. Emily is engaged and Laura is remarried, both to really nice guys, but they have to get past their pasts to be happy. Joe is an actor and a playwright and his life is seemingly going downhill. This book is good for a reading group, given the questions raised. Is Joe to blame for his son's death? Does Laura think so? Does Emily think so? What are the meanings of the title? Who is Ingrid? Is she a real person? Is she how Joe imagines Emily at a younger age? Does she represent Emily? The book made me think, and analyze the characters and plot. It was never boring. The backstory never got in the way of what was happening in the present. Highly recommended.

I kept hoping this book would hurry up and be DONE! I slogged through it and became painfully aware that it simply wasn't going to have a big reveal or a lesson learned in the end and the characters would become better people. Instead, it just revealed a tediously slow torture of the Archer family's unraveling after the death of a family member and how it impacted them years beyond the death to present day living and the approaching wedding of Emily Archer (daughter). The parents, Joe & Laura, have divorced years ago after their son Thomas died with lymphoma after a bout with pneumonia. The book ploddingly bounces between the past and present every other chapter and by the time Thomas' illness is revealed and Joe's extra-marital affair and the aftermath it simply bogs down in details instead of moving the story forward or making the reader care about the characters. I would borrow this one from the library.

Bass's first novel begins as the Ascher family are planning a wedding where Emily Ascher daughter of popular actor turned playwright Joe Ascher is planning to marry her latest beau Clay, a handsome Asian-American. The site of the wedding is where the old family home used to stand, and Emily's insistence on having the ceremony here jumpstarts a mixed bag of pent-up memories and silent animosities. Over the past decade or so the Ascher's have stumbled through one crisis after another, most significantly the acrimonious divorce between Joe and his beautiful wife Laura, whose desire to be an actor was subjugated to Joe's needs. What most caused the rift between Joe and Laura was the terrible illness of their son Thomas, plagued with cancer at such a young age, and then Joe's affair with the glamorously disheveled and charmingly neurotic Gina and also Laura's petty annoyance when Joe suggests Emily for his new play. In Laura's eyes it is unhealthy for a girl such as her wayward and rebellious daughter to be star-struck by her own father.

Moving from the early 1990's to the present day, Bass presents her characters with them all the betrayals, misplaced expectations, and miscommunications of their lives together. Laura, Joe and Emily have all been plagued by their private animosities and over the years, and they have rarely shared the kind of intimacies when they were a young family living in Greece. Neither Joe nor Laura had imagined that their lives would be characterized by such anger with both now feeling the constant urge to put each other down. down. The two have had a rather strained relationship with Emily for the last several years, the gap between them widening ever more. Emily is not quite so secure in her new career as a lawyer and is anxious about the future and her impending nuptials to Clay.

Even as Emily still wants her father to walk her down the isle, she's concerned when she discovers that Laura has been inappropriately meddling in her private affairs, desiring that her mother to leave her alone and make her own decisions. As an image of Thomas "back up in the trees and out of reach" descends on this family, perhaps it is only Thomas who can provide the family, especially Emily with a sense of perspective. While Joe escapes to the Midwest to write a travel piece on the Jefferson Inn, "to sell his soul," Laura finds a new kind of comfort with Earl and a new type of love; it's relief for her to start over and to wipe the slate clean "of all that nonsense and not let our emotions carry us away." Yet Laura wonders how much she was responsible for the years of strain between herself and her daughter.

Bass layers her intuitive drama against a present and a past where Emily was once a sulky, petulant and rebellious adolescent daughter who eventually gets caught smoking pot at school and has flings with much older men. Meanwhile, Laura and Joe remain somewhat snobbish and self-absorbed - they readily love their daughter and their son, but family life seems somewhat subjugated to the advancement of their respective careers. It is here where in Emily's eyes her mother could do no right, while her father was a "veritable magician" able to turn any dull moment into an exciting adventure. Immersing us in her cherished setting, Bass creates a beautifully realized and densely compelling familiar arc as her characters are transformed throughout the years, sometimes for the best but often for the worst, certainly all are weighed down by a new-found cynicism about the world and their place in it. Although Emily intends her wedding to go ahead, the plans are most definitely tempered by events - the machinations of Laura and a sudden heart attach of Joe's. Yet for the most part, the petty resentments are best laid to rest as this family finally comes to terms with "the embers" of their lives and also learns to accept each other as they are. Mike Leonard August 09.

I really liked this book; I found it pleasurable to read and (at times painfully) realistic. It is a complex and highly detailed story of the effects of disharmony, and later of an alcohol-related tragedy, on a modern New York family. The point of view moves among four people: Laura and Joe, the parents, and Emily and Thomas, their children, and the time frame alternates between the mid-1990's and the mid-2000's. Emily's upcoming wedding serves to move all the characters forward into deeper family drama and into the reopening and reconciliation of some former conflicts. All the characters are finely drawn with distinct personaliites and characteristics. Their humanity is often revealed through their flaws, except for Thomas, who does come across most of the time as a kind of passive angel. I do think the topic of Joe's alcoholism could have been dealt with in more depth. I think the author intended to use spare descriptive details to indicate the effects of alcholism on the family, but I think the devastation caused by alcoholism was downplayed. A subplot concerned Joe's creative process (he is an actor and playwright)and I found this fascinating. Mary Lee Moser, author, There and Back: A Journal Companion for Special Needs Parents

Joe, Laura and Emily are the remaining members of the Ascher clan -- three very different, jaded and bitter people dealing with the loss of Thomas, Joe and Laura's son and Emily's older brother. The novel opens in 2007, more than a decade after Thomas's death, and flits between the past and present. We're given the tragic story in pieces, each new development adding to the mosaic of what we know of Joe's narcissistic tendencies to obsess over his plays and acting career, his marital problems with Laura, Emily's acts of rebellion and what really happened to Thomas. Nothing is really as it seems, but everything ended up the way I expected it to.

THE EMBERS is an exploration of family, betrayal, grief, forgiveness and aspirations -- and what it means to love and try to love completely. All of these themes were quite well developed, but my fundamental problem with the novel was this: I didn't like any of the characters. Any of them.

To me, everyone in this novel was hopelessly devoid of redemption -- totally self-absorbed, screwed up and blind. The beginning of the novel was moody, atmospheric and even a little creepy, setting the backdrop for the wedding present-day Emily is planning with kind, gentle fiance Clay. But Emily is so haunted by the death of her brother and weighed down by the complicated non-relationship she has with Joe, she's unable to really be present in her own life. And that's just down-right depressing.

We know that though Laura, Joe and Emily have been living their lives apart in recent years and pretending to have found peace since the tragedy that gutted their family, they must ultimately come back together to truly heal. Are they able to honestly confront the past? Are they, in fact, beyond help?

I don't know that I have a clear answer to that question -- even after completing this one. If you're looking for a very deep, gritty and occasionally moving exploration of one family imploding upon itself, THE EMBERS is a pretty good psychological read. I definitely felt as though I'd been on a journey after finishing, and I closed the book with a knot in my stomach. I'd spent almost 300 pages with people I didn't much care for, and I can only hope they someday find the peace I did after I closed the cover!

Playwright and actor Joe Ascher believes he is the greatest artist of all time and expects his family to adulate him. His wife Laura suffers in silence his egomania accentuated by his womanizing. His daughter Emily has always tried to be daddy's little girl, but he only has time for himself. The only member of the family who lives harmoniously is Emily and Joe's son Thomas who was never concerned with what his father thought of him, but now he is dying from lymphoma.

Now an attorney Emily is getting married to half Korean Clay. Their wedding is to be held in Berkshires at family vacation home where she and Tom spent their summers. The ceremony is on a hill where Tom's ashes were scattered as Emily needs her late brother at the wedding. Her parents are divorced; while Laura remarried, still womanizing Joe is a has been who hopes for one last glory hit like a former punch-drunk boxing champion going in for one more title fight long past his prime. His estranged daughter wants him to give her away, which may be his last chance to perform as a father.

Rotating between the past and present, Hyatt Bass provides a fascinating tale that has few events, but differing perspectives as to what occurred. The story line is character driven by the Ascher family who are all fully developed protagonists seeing incidents totally different. Fans will enjoy the Butterfly Effect on a family as minor occurrences lead to major confrontations years afterward; thus the Aschers are victims of self induced inertia and chaos. EMBERS is a wonderful introspective novel though there is for practical purposes no action.

Harriet Klausner

I never seem to tire of reading about perfectly functional families who are torn apart by one tragic event. In this brilliantly written novel a family loses their golden boy son and the impact on the rest of the family causes seemingly irreperable damage. I especially appreciated how the author danced between the the past and the present while giving us various perspectives on the same events. The characters were all interesting and relatable, especially the father, who seemed to have taken the brunt of the familial responsibility (or irresponsibility depending on how you look at it.) He had the greatest depth, and my favorite line in the book is when he compares snow with the human aging process. "Day and night were cyclical--as were seasons. But snow, like human life, built gradually to a certain point, then gradually--or abruptly--melted away." For some reason that line really made a lot of sense to me. The Embers is filled with deep thoughts thoughout and I anticipate a bright future for this new author. I highly recommend The Embers. It's not necessarily a beach book because the subject matter is sometimes grim, but it is definitely a thought-provoking pageturner. I loved it.

The Embers tells the story of the dysfunctional Ascher family - Emily who is engaged to be married, her divorced parents: her father Joe, a famous playwright and actor, her mother, Laura, happily remarried, and her dead brother, Thomas. The book alternates between the present where Emily is planning her wedding and the past which tells the family's history including Thomas' illness and his father's role in his death.

The characters are all self absorbed, each caught up in their own world and unable to connect to each other in any meaningful way. Even Thomas is one dimensional - the almost perfect son dispensing advice to his younger sister on how to handle their parents, never getting angry about anything, even the crappy hand he his dealt.

Throughout the book it's hinted/implied that Joe is somehow responsible for his son's death and when the mystery is finally cleared up, it's dealt with briefly and unsatisfactorily. I was left feeling, that's it? That's the big secret?

I could not connect to any of the characters and therefore never got emotionally invested in them. Though The Embers was a fairly quick read it was not a worthwhile one.