Good Family: A Novel [Hardcover]

Terry Gamble (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

A retreat on Lake Michigan for old-money WASPs, Sand Isle has long been the summer residence of the Addison family. The youngest member of the clan, Maddie Addison, survived an awkward but sheltered adolescence only to be plagued in adulthood by alcoholism, a failed marriage, and an unendurable loss that sent her fleeing the burden of family expectations. Now, after an eleven-year hiatus, Maddie has been summoned back to Sand Isle, where her widowed mother languishes near death. What awaits Maddie is a collision of distinct, eccentric personalities -- by turns hilarious and poignant -- as well as an archive of memories that evoke pleasure, passion, and pain. Beneath the silent gaze of her ailing mother, Maddie and her family must confront their past and face the future to once again find a home in a house steeped in untold stories of its own.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gamble's evocative second novel chronicles a prodigal daughter's fraught homecoming and re-immersion in a family history both harsh and cradling. After an 11-year absence, 40-something filmmaker Maddie Addison leaves New York and returns to her patrician family's summer place on the shores of Lake Michigan to join an odd mix of family and friends at the bedside of her dying mother. There, as she battles with the ghosts of past mistakes, she discovers family secrets and confronts her personal tragedies. She faces her sister, Dana; an old boyfriend; and a cast of eccentric cousins as they all come together for the first time in more than a decade. As her former boozehound mother's health deteriorates, Maddie recollects the decades past that account for the woman she has become, recounting her confused love for various cousins, her failed marriage, the death of her infant and her own struggles with alcohol. Hidden letters, secret loves and desperate acts all come to light as Maddie strives for peace with her relatives and within herself. Though she occasionally strains for lyricism, Gamble (The Water Dancers) paints a poignant tale that is at once tragic and hopeful.
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From Booklist

In the waning days of her mother's life, Maddie Addison reluctantly returns to the family vacation home on Michigan's Sand Isle, an idyllic retreat where generations of prominent industrialists have traditionally summered in grand style, replete with servants, sailboats, and secrets. Though this was once a welcome haven, Maddie has been in self-imposed exile for more than a decade, ever since the tragic summer when her infant daughter, Sadie, died, an event that plunged Maddie into the depths of alcoholic despair. Now faced with the family she alienated and abandoned--a raucous and slightly dissipated group of siblings, cousins, and assorted offspring--Maddie is forced to confront the rueful memories that haunt her, the vexing choices she has made, and the poignant consequences of living a life apart. Rich in elegant reflections and piquant observations, Gamble's sublime account of a family in disarray and a woman displaced is sheer perfection; she masterfully gives shape and nuance to the intricacies of those relationships that are meant to provide comfort, but that very often mask underlying sorrow. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060737948
• ISBN-13: 978-0060737948
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,206,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reliving the beauty of my Up North childhood...an outstanding sophomore novel by Ms. Gamble, October 21, 2005

By 

Sarah - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Good Family: A Novel (Hardcover)

Like author Terry Gamble, I spent my childhood summers in the same town as the author in Northern Michigan: the millionaires' summer resort of Harbor Springs, with its lavish "summer cottages" (sprawling mansions) and yacht club, inspiration behind her first novel "The Water Dancers" and her sophomore effort "Good Family." The natural beauty of this area is lovingly brought to life as the setting for a family reunion upon the death of its matriarch. Like the thinly veiled settings of Harbor Point, Harbor Springs, and Petoskey in "Water Dancers," "Good Family" seems a juxtaposition of the turn-of-the-century cottages on Mackinac Island, the elegant mansions of Harbor Point, and the turn-of-the-century Methodist summer community of Bay View in Petoskey.

The Addison family, made famous by its early pharmaceuticals, owns the Aerie, a sprawling, run-down cottage on Sand Isle, where cars are forbidden and transportation is by horse, carriage, and bicycle. The family's many eccentric relatives are drawn back together at the imminent death of its matriarch.

The novel's narrator is Maddie, a struggling filmmaker in New York who is recovering from years of alcoholism and traumatic earlier events. The last place she wants to be is the Aerie, haunted by ghosts both real and imagined. Memories of earlier summers, of her mother's easy elegance and later neglect, of forbidden crushes, of life-altering tragedies all come flooding back, and Maddie must assess where she has come from and where she is going. Maddie, her sister (the faithful, staid Dana) and cousins (the mystic Adele, rebellious adopted Jessica, alcoholic thespian Sedgie, artistic Derek) come together for the first time in a decade to figure out the etiquette of dying. Maddie must tangle with the ghosts of her past and make peace with the events that so drastically altered her life (the death of a child and a divorce, her alcoholism, near-incest), while bringing closure to the family's tumultuous relationship with its matriarch.

Clearly, many elements of Ms. Gamble's childhood summers on Harbor Point seem autobiographical: the train rides to Northern Michigan, the sprawling, run-down, once-elegant summer mansions that have fallen into disrepair, the rivalries and vicious backbiting of the country club elite, the flippant disregard to spending large sums of money on keeping up appearances, the inherent racism of an earlier age (the invisibility of the "colored help," black lawn jockeys, etc.), and the Native American mysticism that is as old as the land: the Odawa (Ottawa) tribes that live around Little Traverse Bay, on hard times but still maintaining a cultural presence (a theme explored in more depth in her debut "The Water Dancers.").

As a sophomore follow-up to "The Water Dancers," "Good Family" is much improved, featuring a more tightly-knit cast, a seamless interweaving of past and present, and a much stronger, more realistic storyline. Instead of a picture-perfect world of millionaires and easy living, Ms. Gamble's characters wallow in the mundane sorrows of living: a damaged Vietnam vet (cousin Edward, in and out of different institutions until he finally disappears), alcoholism (Maddie, her mother, Sedgie, and her gay best friend Ian), failed relationships, dead babies, and the price of apparent success. The country club lifestyle that so dominates Northern Michigan resort towns is systematically picked apart to reveal its earlier racism, elitism, and falsity of appearances and substance.

A spellbinding read that once again transported me to the beautiful landscapes of my childhood, dominated by the cry of gulls, the shifting moods of Lake Michigan, the elegant, faded mansions of Mackinac Island, Bay View and Harbor Point, the small boutiques of Harbor Springs with their colorful striped awnings and resplendent windowboxes of petunias, pansies and impatiens, and the sense of home.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inherited Money, March 24, 2009

By 

Yiayia Janet "Bk Luvr" (Near Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Good Family: A Novel (Paperback)

I gave Good Family two stars because it is well written enough that there is no problem finishing it. It does not make you laugh or cry nor will I remember the characters a month from now. The summer cottage is a very large house on an island. Watching Michigan sunsets and playing in the water is very lovely, but does not seem to make happy people. All of the characters are in some way flawed. It appears that having inherited sufficient money to not have to work for a living may result in identity issues. Yes, they have had problems and losses. If you live long enough who hasn't? The family is concerned that one cousin may not come for the death watch, because there is no cook on the premises. In the distant past the family arrived with an entourage: of cook, nurse, maids etc.. Times have changed and they have to prepare their own meals. This book brings to mind news stories of today's children of famous old families who contribute little to society and come to bad ends. If these folks had to show up at work 350 days a year they might be better people. As power does so does money corrupt.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put It Down, August 27, 2005

By 

Suzanne Lewis (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Good Family: A Novel (Hardcover)

This was my most favorite novel that I read all year. I still miss the characters, especially Maddie and Ian, and marvel at this author's ability to capture such a wonderful sense of place. I wish they'd make a movie of it!