Customer Reviews

Family History

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

How could a family and a marriage fall apart after so many happy years? Rachel Jensen finds out in Dani Shapiro's novel FAMILY HISTORY, the story of her family and how they deal with a child that shows signs of mental illness. The book opens with Rachel sitting in her house alone, watching home movies taken by her husband Ned. She stares at the movie screen and sees herself and her family, yet she does not recognize them. The happy smiles and laughter that she is watching is from a lifetime ago. She still has not adjusted to her new life without her husband or her daughter Kate. The smiles and laughter are only memories. The only remnant of her family is her young son Joshua, who lives with her in this house. He is far too young to really understand how bad things are for his parents and he does not know that he has a sister named Kate. For most of Joshua's life, Kate has not lived with the family.

Rachel goes downstairs to check her phone messages and listens to one that asks her to go to Stone Mountain in regards to Kate. Whatever the news is, Rachel is dreading to hear it. There could be no good news if they are calling her about Kate.

How did things get to this point? The bulk of the story is told in flashbacks. As the story line slowly progresses and the appointment at Stone Mountain approaches, the reader learns about Ned and Rachel's courtship and their romantic dreams of being artists before their children were even a glimmer in their eyes. The two of them lived in New York and, while trying to make their artistic dreams come true, Rachel learns she is pregnant. With the help of Ned's parents, who also happen to be very wealthy, they buy a fixer-upper near his parents' home in Massachusetts. It's away from the big city and closer to her in-laws, who could help them out as the two of them try to make a new life for their new family. Rachel sees this move as a big change --- along with her pregnancy --- and it becomes one of the pivotal points in their lives.

We learn about Kate, who had shown much promise of a bright future. We learn about the event that ultimately sends Kate away from her family, because she is too unstable to be cared for at home by her parents. Neither Ned nor Rachel saw the signs that led to this event. They did not see the signs that would have told them that Kate would start to go through a transformation, from happy-go-lucky preteen to sullen and moody teenager. Close friends said it was just a phase all girls go through and Rachel believed it for a while. Then things started to get worse.

They did not predict the unexplainable tantrums and mood swings Kate would begin to experience: her foul language at home, shoplifting incidences and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Again, this all could have been a phase that Kate was going through. No one would have believed that things would get so bad that Kate would have the power to break apart and destroy their family and nearly ruin a marriage and a love that should have lasted throughout the years. Ned and Rachel are united in their love and care for Kate, but when Kate reveals the ultimate accusation at her father, their lives are torn apart.

FAMILY HISTORY sounds like a complex psychological drama built around a family that is falling apart. Part of the story is just that, but there are other layers to this book. The relationship with mother and daughters is a secondary plot as we compare Rachel's relationship with her own dysfunctional mother to that of her own relationship with Kate. The study of a marriage is another subplot --- how two people who thought they knew each other so well become total strangers overnight. All these factors helped make this a very fast read for me, but overall I enjoyed the way Dani Shapiro writes. She made these characters seem familiar to me; I felt close to all of them, as if I was the friend or family that surrounded them. I finished this book in a record 24 hours. That's how much I enjoyed this book. This reviewer highly recommends FAMILY HISTORY and looks forward to reading Dani Shapiro's other novels.

--- Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton

FAMILY HISTORY by Dani Shapiro

FAMILY HISTORY is a story of a woman's struggle to keep her family together and herself sane after a series of events threatens to hurt her marriage and tear it apart.

Rachel Jensen at one point in her life was able to say that she had the perfect life. She was not financially rich by any means, but she could vouch that her family was a happy one, and her marriage was solid and full of love and laughter. There wasn't anything she felt she lacked monetarily, and this was important to her, since throughout their marriage they had to prove to their parents that they could indeed make it financially on the type of dreams they were shooting for. She knew she was the envy of others, and would never have thought that this world that she was familiar with was about to come crashing down around her.

The book opens to a scene with Rachel sitting alone in her bedroom, wallowing in self-pity as she watches old home movies of her husband and her daughter Kate laughing and smiling. It is a movie of happier times, before the baby was born, and before their daughter Kate started to change right before their eyes.

The reader knows immediately that there is something terribly wrong, as she is sitting in her bedroom alone in the dark. Her husband no longer lives with her, and their daughter has not lived with them in quite a while. All that is left in her life is baby Josh, and he is far too young to comprehend that anything is wrong with their family.

The destructive events that occur that destroy the harmony of the family are centered on Kate, who by this time is a young teenager going through a lot of extreme emotional and behavioral changes. Rachel is told that this is just a phase all teenagers go through, and Rachel believes it for a while, but when Kate's behavior becomes so hard to manage, Rachel is not sure what to think anymore.

The book is told in parallel - we see flashbacks of her courtship with her husband Ned and their early years together in New York. At the same time we are back in the present day, where Ned and Rachel are worrying about the future of their daughter Kate, who is in an institution for troubled young adults. I felt this method of story-telling helped keep the action moving, and kept my interest in the characters alive as I got to know them starting from their younger years together and through their current messed up lives.

The climax of events leads to a horrible accident that could have been prevented, and that event in turn leads to yet another horrible incident that causes the break up of the family. It is a living nightmare that they are going through, and no one knows if there is any relief in sight.

FAMILY HISTORY by Dani Shapiro is a book that was so intense that it was probably the fastest read I've had in a long time. It's one of those books that you can't put down. I want to compare this book to Elizabeth Berg's best novels, which often center on strong women or women who are trying to find themselves and make new lives for themselves. In FAMILY HISTORY, we have a woman that thought her love was strong enough to deal with any obstacle, but finds her love is tested because of a child that is ill. I'm giving this an enthusiastic thumbs up, and am willing to read any other book that has been penned by Dani Shapiro.

When I picked up 'Family History' at the local library, I groaned inwardly at such a title and thought it might be boring.

Then I started reading it at 11pm last night in bed and at 6pm the next day, I'm almost finished. I've never read a Dani Shapiro novel before, but found this book brilliant because it's true and believeable. As a teenager with chronic depression, I can feel for both Rachel and her daughter Kate.

When Rachel and Ned, her husband, pick up Kate from summer camp, they find Kate to have changed, and what they see ends up becoming the tip of the ice-berg. It's difficult for Kate to tell her parents how she feels, and within my depression I have felt much the same way. There are good and bad times throughout it, and though Kate obviously has a far worse mental illness, crossing the border into schizophrenia, I can feel her pain.

I suspect Rachel also suffers from depression, but it is less obvious to her, and I am able to feel her pain as well, as in my darker days I think everyone's lives are far better than mine (though I've got a good life, wonderful family and friends.)

For these reasons, I've thoroughly enjoyed 'Family History' and am rather upset to be almost at its end.

Dani Shapiro has written an amazing book and I could not put it down. On Friday, a friend gave FAMILY HISTORY to me and I read over the weekend. The book details a family in desperate pain...one that is torn apart and yet finds their way back to each other.

I identified with Rachel as this hip mom who loves her husband and children. Her disdain for as her hubby who leaves his aspirations and future as a painter to go work for his parents selling real estate ... Her confusion as her beloved daughter scorns her every advance ... Her desire to let the outside world float by as she stays in bed under the covers -- well, I am sure most of us have felt these feelings, even if only for a fleeting moment. Oh, and the way Rachel deals with her mom!

The book made me appreciate my life. I loved it and recommend it highly. It is beautifully written, captivating and intensely moving.

In my busy world I have time for little reading. So often I start a book and never finish it. Most fiction seems dull when contrasted with my own life. I only wish there were more books like Family History. I enjoyed it and am now going to try another of the author's books.

Family History is a moving, literate and compelling book about a family- one which could be yours or mine because we are all captive to the vagaries of life. Not one of us is promised joy, happiness, lack of travail or good luck. This is a story about a family which from the outside should be the envy of the community. They have beauty, intelligence and each other and yet that may not be enough to save them. Shapiro takes us inside the soul of the Jensen family and keeps us guessing about what has gone so terribly wrong to such good people. Why is their world spiraling out of control?
Shapiro is a gifted and insightful writer. She makes us care about people who are not always likeable. If you don't recognize yourself within this family -- you haven't been paying attention to your life.

Dani Shapiro's novel, "Family History" is a painful look at the disintegration of a once close-knit family. Ned and Rachel Jensen are a happily married couple who live in a suburb not far from Boston. Ned, who had once hoped to be a working artist, is a popular high school teacher and Rachel is a devoted mother and part-time art restorer. Their daughter, Kate, is bright, athletic, and beautiful.

Everything changes when Kate turns thirteen and comes home from camp with a sullen, distant, and rebellious attitude. She begins to show signs of emotional disturbance, and as time goes on, her condition deteriorates. After Rachel learns that she is pregnant, she desperately hopes that their lives will once again be happy and serene. Her hopes are dashed when tragedy strikes and threatens to rip the Jensens apart forever.

Dani Shapiro has an intimate writing style that draws the reader into these troubled lives. We feel Rachel's panic as she sees all that she values slipping away from her. Ned is a caring husband and father who has given up his dream to be an artist in order to support the wife and child he adores. He is shocked when he realizes that his sacrifices may all have been in vain. Kate is a lost soul whose sensitivity and hurt overwhelm her and warp her judgment. There are some nicely depicted supporting players in this novel, as well, most notably Rachel's mother, a self-absorbed harridan named Phyllis who is hypercritical and cold towards Rachel.

What keeps "Family History" from being just another overwrought soap opera? Shapiro fleshes out her characters thoroughly and she injects elements of hope and compassion into her story that keep the book from sinking under the weight of unrelieved gloom. She poignantly shows that when two people truly love one another, they never stop trying to fix what seems to have been irrevocably broken. "Family History" teeters on the edge of melodrama, but it is saved by Shapiro's moving and compassionate depiction of a family ravaged by life.

This was truly a book I could not put down! I was rapt with attention on every page. I could have read another 500 pages about this family. Dani Shapiro has a gift for making you feel like you are listening to a friend tell her story to you. I was rooting for all of the characters and really cared about them. This is definitely one of the best books I have read. Do not hesitate to purchase this book, just make sure you have an open schedule when you start reading it, you will not want to stop!

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

From the first page to the last, this book gripped my heart and my soul. Immersed in Family History, I turned each page wanting to know what happened to this family and why. I read the book in (almost) one sitting and when I finished, I wanted more.

In today's cluttered world, I rarely find a book that creates such a strong emotional response. I wish everyone would read this book and truly appreciate life, which can change without a moments notice. Family History takes the reader through the pain of a family and affirms the true essence of hope. I loved it and have already bought two copies as gifts.

Highly acclaimed and successful novelist Dani Shapiro is an excellent writer. I only wish the sequel to Family History existed .

This book's best quality is quite simply the story. Many authors are too frightened of seeming theatrical to have anything *happen* in their books, but Shapiro puts in just the right, believable amount of disaster. The characters are not always likeable, but they are consistently interesting.

I have only read a few reviews of this book that are negative...and in each case the reviewer doesn't seem to get the plot of the book, which makes me wonder if they read the whole thing. I recommend it.