Customer Reviews

The Ghost at the Table: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I liked the idea of setting the story in my old haunts. Massachussets, especially the Cape, and West Hartford were well related in text. I especially liked the insights into Mark Twain and his family's secrets. BUT, the parallels with the family in the novel hit you over the head. No subtle references there!However, I expected to have some sort of resolution to who really killed momma. The housekeeper? The dad thought the middle daughter did it. The middle daughter thought the youngest sister did it. The daughter thought the dad did it. I really wanted to like this book.But, it fell short.Depressing as anything.

In my opinion this family is not all that dysfunctional. I saw elements of the characters in my own family and my in-laws. When families get together at the holidays there can be tension, closeness, humor, flashes of insight, arguments, resentment. Maybe some individuals will long for their home where all is quiet and familiar. A lot of families have aging parents whose needs must be met. Often parents don't have the best marriage - fathers may be distant or autocratic, moms may be sick a lot, and as they age they kind of fade away. Some family members may want to reach out to others who might otherwise spend the holiday alone - others might bring a guest just to rile things up. There may be a quiet, tortured teenager in the mix. Sisters may fight about what really happened in the past and struggle to control the situation around them. Granted, family heirlooms do not often go up in flames, but with the combination of candles and alcoholic beverages on holidays, it's always a possibility.

I liked this book a lot. I did not feel there was missing information. Yes, there were unanswered questions, just as there are in real life. I think the author's point was that we each have our own version of our history, and we view History with a capital H based on our own frame of reference. I loved the detail about Mark Twain's family life. I don't know whether it was true. There's probably no way to prove it. I'm OK with that. As the author wrote in her note at the end of the book, it all started with her own childhood visit to Twain's homestead, her fantasies about his family life, and a story involving a fictional family that evolved from that experience.

Personally, I found the story riveting. The writing was clean and excellent. The characters were totally realistic. I am going to be thinking about this book for a long time.

Like the memories of real people, the memories of the characters in this book are suspect and flawed. For me, that was what made this book so interesting. The book is told from a single point of view, Cynthia's. For the most part the reader is dealing with her memories and her perceptions, but as the book progresses, those are brought into sharp contrast with the memories of her sister Frances. Frances pretty much sums it up when she says, "That's not what it was like for me."
Childhoods spent in the same house with the same parents are vastly different and it depends so much, as Cynthia concludes, on what a person makes of what he or she is given. By the end of the book, Cynthia takes what she has been given and embraces it with forgiveness and love. The resolution may not be tidy, but it's there; and for me it was very powerful.

This book centers on a Thanksgiving week in which a long-estranged family is thrust back together to act out the various roles they've always played. Older sister Frances sees the world through rose-colored glasses and she remembers her growing-up years in a much more positive light than her younger sister, Cynthia. Frances was her father's favorite and their deceased sister was her mother's favorite, causing Cynthia to feel left out and unimportant to the family. The girls' mother was ill and died when they were young. Throughout the years, Cynthia is convinced that her father killed her mother, while Frances disagrees. This is a delicate ballet of relationships, beautifully choreographed by author Suzanne Berne. It is easy to read the book and judge this family as hopelessly dysfunctional, but if readers are honest, they are likely to identify with at least one of the characters in the book.

This was a very readable book with above average characterizations. However, I felt much like another reviewer who stated, "What did I miss?" In my opinion, this is not so much a book on dysfunctional families as it is a book on PERCEPTIONS. Cynnie's life seems clouded by what she BELIEVED to have happened. It is, somewhat, frightening to think that one's life is so clouded by events that may OR MAY NOT have occurred. If someone is interested in reading about dysfuctional families, I urge them to read Pat Conroy, Nuala O'Failon, Sarah Willis, Richard Russo, etal. I would recommended this with reservations.

I started out liking this book very much and, like some other readers, ended up feeling like nothing was resolved. Another reviewer said that maybe the point is that "nothing is clear," and I think that's probably true, that we all have our own versions of reality. But everything was left up in the air and I would've liked some resolution on something. It built up some suspense, but then we were left hanging.

It is very well written.

This book begins with a very engaging premise, and seems very cleverly written. There are many red flags raised about the condition of the narrator's sister, whom she is persuaded to visit for Thanksgiving, but ultimately, fewer are resolved. The plot takes some strange turns getting to the end. Some interesting parallels between the narrator's family and Mark Twain's are alluded to, of whom the narrater is writing an historical fiction novel for young readers, but those are not totally thought out either. For me, an unsatisfying resolution.

I did enjoy this book; however, it certainly was not one of the best books I have ever read.

It is very well written. I liked it immediately, but as the book progressed, I felt disappointed and wanting for more. More what? More information -- I felt as if I missed important facts, but when I would check back, I did not. Maybe I was supposed to figure things out for myself?!!! When the book ended, I felt as if nothing was resolved for the characters or for me!!!

This book evolves around a family full of secrets. Two sisters come together for Thanksgiving, along with the rest of their family. Frances, the older sister who is hosting Thanksgiving, has her younger sister Cynthia come for the holiday and a long overdue visit. Add to this their invalid aged father. Both sisters have bad feelings towards their dad.

This is a dysfunctional family. I did not like this family at all. The author left me with a ton of unanswered questions regarding the family and their situations. For me, the book was just too vague.

There is a question regarding their long passed mom. She had been ill most of their young lives and in the end it seems she may have been murdered. But by whom? First I thought it was the dad, then Frances, then Cynthia -- maybe you are not supposed to figure out who killed her - or if she even WAS poisoned.

This book just left me feeling like WHAT? I consider myself of average intelligence; perhaps even above average intelligence; however, I am certainly NOT a genius!!!! Maybe I missed something in the text of this book because when I finished it I felt as if I didn't know WHAT HAPPENED.

The author does write well and the characters were interesting. The references to Mark Twain and other historical people were very good, full of knowledge, and facts that I never knew about these people. However, in the long run, I don't think I will be recommending this book to any of my family and friends.

Thank you! Pam

Berne's skillful portrait of two sisters--Cynthia, the narrator, who feels a kinship with the forgotten sisters of famous writers whose lives she records for her "Sisters in History" series (e.g., Lavinia Dickinson and Mildred Keller), and capable, beautiful Frances, her father's favorite and the far more polished of the two--raises fascinating questions about each of the two women and the other members of their family. Cynthia's version of events--both in the present and, especially, in the past--becomes increasingly unreliable as the novel progresses, creating wonderful suspense.
Cynthia reminded me of the narrator in Zoe Heller's examination of a complex female friendship, What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal (which is a wonderful novel--something to check out if you enjoyed this one!). Both characters ingratiate themselves with the reader very successfully at the outset: Cynthia, for instance, is a lonely, self-sufficient but somewhat desperate woman whose recently kaput affair with a married bookseller makes us feel for her in the presence of her antique-collecting, soup-making, genuinely kind and good and more physically lovely older sister Frances. Cynthia's work, writing historical fiction of sorts for preteen girls, requires her to sugarcoat the less palatable aspects of authors' lives and personalities in order to tell a good story. Thus, in both her personal and professional lives, Cynthia seems to be thwarted in significant ways.
As the novel progresses, though, the two aspects of her life seem to be less sadly coincidental and more reflective of one another. Both personally and professionally, Cynthia (whom Frances calls, perhaps tellingly, "Cynnie") tells stories. She revels in her role as a shaper of information, at one point doling out precious morsels about Mark Twain's unattractive traits and his daughters' travails with something like glee and at others telling stories about her convalescent mother and impatient father--tales whose verity we ultimately come to question. The most suspenseful scenes in the novel come toward the end, when, after misbehaving at Thanksgiving dinner, Cynthia contemplates an action that would constitute a huge betrayal of her sister and then sits idly by while a family heirloom literally goes up in flames. These scenes precede a climax that, if it feels a bit "unsolved," also seems realistic. Like the books she writes for young girls, Cynthia maintains control of her own story--at least in some small way--until the end.
Berne excels in creating memorable characters and settings. Her narrator evolves over the course of the story from a sympathetic also-ran to a sinister presence that reminds us of how deep resentments in families can lie.

A Ghost at the Table started strong with an engaging story and great writing, but then faded into a disappointment. The story is told through the eyes of Cynthia, sister of Helen and Frances, who lives a single life in San Francisco and holds a lifetime of bitter resentment toward her father. She and her sisters had a complicated childhood with a mother who spent her time in bed due to an illness, a father who had unpredictable outbursts of rage, and lots of questions and suspicions surrounding how their mother ultimately died.

The entire book takes place over a long Thanksgiving weekend, one that Frances has designed to bring who is left of the family together again. The weekend slowly unravels to the point of needing to question what the ultimate point of the book is. Perhaps ambiguity is the point in that life isn't always obvious, as we each have and live our own realities. At the end, I still question, "What really happened?"