A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents [Paperback]

Liza Palmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 2009

Grace Hawkes has not spoken to her previously tight-knit family since her mother's sudden death five years ago. Well, most of the family was tight-knit-- her father walked out on them when she was 13 and she and her two brothers and sister bonded together even closer with their mother as a result.

She's been doing her best to live her new life apart from them, but when their estranged father has a stroke and summons them, Grace suddenly realizes she's done the same thing he had done...abandoned those who need her most.

And need her they do, for inside the hospital walls, a strange war is unfolding between the pseudo-kindly woman who is their father's second wife and the rest of the original Hawkes clan. Upon reconnecting with her brother and sisters, Grace will find a part of herself she thought was lost forever. As they unravel the manipulative deception of the second Mrs. Hawkes, Grace will finally be able to stand up for her family-- and to remember what a family is, even after all these years.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Palmer (Conversations with the Fat Girl) delivers a breezy feel-good story of family bonding. After hearing about her father's stroke, smart-ass heroine Grace Hawkes prepares for the wrath of the siblings she's ignored for the five years since their mother's death. Things are a little tricky, since their dad, Ray, left the family 20 years before and was a prolific philanderer, now remarried to the unsavory Connie. Snappy sibling bickering (sometimes too much of it) takes a bit of the melodramatic edge off as oldest sibling Huston takes charge and is surprisingly given power of attorney. Connie and her adult son, Dennis, aren't happy about this, which raises suspicion among the Hawkes siblings, especially after they visit their father's house and find no trace of Connie having lived there; instead, it's a shrine to Ray's first wife and the kids. As Ray's health declines in the hospital, tensions heat up and a legal showdown looms. There aren't any surprises in the sunny resolution, but Palmer takes enough unexpected detours on the way there to keep readers engaged. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

After their mother’s unexpected death, Grace fled her fiancé and siblings for a life largely lacking emotional connections. Now, five years later, their estranged father is gravely ill, and she and her siblings, Abigail, Huston, and Leo, have been called to his side. Grace must confront her own abandonment of her family even as she comes to terms with her father’s. The siblings discover their father repeatedly tried to restore his relationship with his family and that his seemingly devoted second wife is hiding the true nature of their marriage. As they arrange for their father’s care, Grace rekindles her bond with her siblings and makes amends with her former love. Palmer, author of Conversations with the Fat Girl (2005), writes with honesty, humor, and grace about family and romantic relationships. This realistic, emotional novel will resonate with readers. --Aleksandra Walker

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: 5 Spot; 1 edition (December 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446698385
• ISBN-13: 978-0446698382
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,235,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Liza Palmer is the internationally bestselling author of Conversations with the Fat Girl which Booklist says, "...manages to infuse a message of self--acceptance that isn't heavy-handed or cloying. This quick-witted author is sure to develop a following." Conversations with the Fat Girl became an international bestseller its first week in publication, being named a Target Breakout book, as well as hitting Number 1 on the Fiction Heatseekers List in the UK the week before the book debuted.

Conversations with the Fat Girl has been optioned for series by HBO by the producers of Rome, Band of Brothers and Generation Kill.

Palmer's second novel is Seeing Me Naked, which Publisher's Weekly says, "consider it haute chick lit; Palmer's prose is sharp, her characters are solid and her narrative is laced with moments of graceful sentiment."

Palmer's third novel, A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents will be published in January 2010.

Palmer currently lives in Los Angeles and is hard at work on her next novel as well as several film and television projects.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A field guide to writing a warm, delicious novel, December 22, 2009

By 

E. Jacobs - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents (Paperback)

This book revolves around the four adult children in the Hawkes family, who are reunited when their father falls ill. They have struggled as a family since their mother's death five years prior to the start of the story, and the book follows the various ways they have coped with losing a parent. For example, the protagonist, Grace, has isolated herself from her family completely since their mother's death. When faced with the prospect of losing their father, they are forced to either unite or divide.

I really, really enjoyed Liza Palmer's portrayal of this family. The characters, their feelings, their interactions, and their conversations all rang true to me. Of course, the makeup of my family is almost identical to that of the Hawkes', down to the ages, so I may have related more than the average reader. Even if that were the case, I feel that Ms. Palmer is extraordinarily gifted at illustrating even the most mundane ways that siblings interact with one another, and how each tends to have their `role' assigned in childhood and can never quite shed it after that.

The book really explores some of the issues related to losing a parent (which can happen in many ways), and how we struggle to adulthood carrying our scars with us. The writing is fresh, crisp, and in many cases, very funny. The only thing keeping me from giving it five stars is that the writing was uneven in some places. But it was a very nice read that made me look forward to more of Ms. Palmer's books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Palmer's Best, February 14, 2010

By 

M. Robb (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents (Paperback)

Or even her second best. It was just OK, some good writing but all in all the characters were so thinly drawn it was hard to feel like you got to know them much. Read "Seeing Me Naked" or "Conversations with the Fat Girl" instead.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Delightful Blend of Romance, Family Drama, and Mystery, January 31, 2010

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Lauren Sophie - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents (Paperback)

I just finished this book and had to come write a positive review. This novel is an engrossing and engaging blend of family drama and romance with a bit of a mystery/legal plot thrown in to round things out. It's smoothly written with a lot of humor and emotion that never feels cliched, even if you feel you've read this plot before.

Grace, the main character, has been living in a detached fog since her mother's death five years before. She doesn't speak to any of her siblings or her former boyfriend. Instead, she's floating through life without feeling anything. When her father--who left the family when Grace was a teenager--has a stroke, Grace is forced to confront the pain that she's kept buried.

I loved all the relationships in this book. John, Grace's former boyfriend, is what you want in a hero--smart, kind, but with an edge. It is perhaps somewhat unrealistic that he'd be available to Grace after five years (throughout, I kept thinking that two to three years would have made more sense), but there's good tension between them and I was invested in their outcome.

I also loved Huston, Abigail, and Leo--is it too much to hope that they all get their own books in the future?

Pick this up when you want a feel-good read that isn't dumbed down.

Grade: A-