Greetings from the Golden State: A Novel [Paperback]

Leslie Brenner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 2002

Born in Southern California in the brightly cast shadow of the Cold War, Andrew Kelbow grows up in an average American family—average until Andrew's father leaves his mother under a cherry tree in the Mohave desert. How the remaining Kelbows survive this rift is a study in diversions, both illicit and ordinary, and over the course of 30 years Andrew must discover for himself the true definition of the happy family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brenner's smart, quirky narrative follows the exploits of the likable Kelbow family of West Hollywood, Calif., from the election of JFK through the Bush administration. The insouciant, goofy Kelbows weather earthquakes, divorce, religion, recession and disillusionment with the kind of blithe sunniness befitting the state that birthed the Beach Boys, hippies and the political career of Ronald Reagan. Young Fanny Kelbow bears her first son, Andrew, in 1960. She and husband, Don, an entertainment lawyer, build a life in the rosy dawn of Camelot that reflects the social and political growing pains of the times, including brand-name loyalty, protest marches and pot. The happy family also swaps its duplex apartment for a house in Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley and adds second son Little Mike and maid Margarita Pilar Takanawa to the household mix. By the time Kennedy has been shot and Nixon elected to the presidency, Don has quit his law firm and his marriage, Fanny has taken a job and a lover, and Andrew and Little Mike are left to struggle toward adulthood in the confused, hedonistic decades that follow. First-novelist Brenner puts her food-writing experience to good use (American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a National Cuisine) by making Andrew and Little Mikey amateur gourmet chefs. She chronicles the Kelbows' life in a loping, anecdotal style that can be both laugh-out-loud funny and genuinely touching. The myriad period details are spot-on, triggering vivid memories for baby boomers. All in all this is a winning debut, full of snappy insights into the Kelbows and the rapidly transforming world that surrounds them. The standout, Technicolor jacket photo of a California suburb signals exactly what Brenner is about. Author tour. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The Kelbow family has a hard time facing reality. Maybe it's the continual glare from the California sun that blinds the family from their emotions and problems. Fanny and Don seem to have a very happy marriage, until Don decides to leave his wife and two sons, Andrew and Little Mike, for his secretary. As Don occasionally comes back into the picture, Fanny and the boys find a way to move on. There is no suspenseful plot here, or much of a plot at all, but Brenner's characters are complex and intriguing as they grow older and not much wiser in sunny LA; and when Brenner uses tongue-in-cheek humor, the novel becomes very entertaining. Troubles arise and become unresolved, but Andrew and Little Mike learn the secrets of gourmet cooking and the family gathers over the boys' delicious food. This is a story of family life for those who want only a pinch or two of family drama, not a handful. Michelle Kaske
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Picador (February 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312420579
• ISBN-13: 978-0312420574
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,771,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hilarious Slice of Life in the Valley, February 3, 2001

By 

Rina Howard (Oak Park, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Greetings from the Golden State: A Novel (Hardcover)

I LOVED this book! The author truly captures the dysfunctional, crazy life of a family of disconnected souls in the San Fernando Valley. The characters are so oddball, so non-functional, so real, that I did not want this novel to end! Besides bringing back memories of growing up in the Valley, this book delighted me with tales of the quirky lives of Fanny, Andrew, Don and Little Mike, all brilliantly and poignantly protrayed by the author. I highly recommend it!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greetings from a Dysfunctional Family, July 18, 2001

By 

Darla Montgomery - See all my reviews

This review is from: Greetings from the Golden State: A Novel (Hardcover)

Brenner has a winner here. "Greetings from the Golden State" is hard to put down. The Kelbow family, with all of its dysfunctions, moves through the cycle of life with incredible humor laced with with realism. We all know families like the Kelbows, and we may even have a touch of them in our own lives. Brenner has a magic touch with dialogue and her characters chew up the scenery. Very funny book!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars morbidly sardonic view of successfully dysfunctional family, January 30, 2002

By 

Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Greetings from the Golden State: A Novel (Paperback)

Leslie Brenner's deubt novel, "Greetings from the Golden State," is a wickedly delightful excursion into the flawed lifestyle of a realtively wealthy suburban Los Angeles Jewish family over the course of three decades. Combining incredibly funny observations about the anguished hopes and frustrated realities of the Kelbow family, the author successfully disguises tart criticism of a terribly bankrupt type of living with a bizarre, bittersweet examination of the separate lives of the Kelbow family. The Kelbows emerge as an archtype: wealthy, smug San Fernando Valley Jews, whose two precocious sons fritter away their lives in fatuous relationships, failed employment and fractured visions of their own importance. "Greetings" slices and dices the illusion of affluence and the supposed perfection of the Southern California dream; what emerges is the rather shocking and unsettling revelation that Ms. Brenner has held the mirror up to not only the Kelbows, but our national obsession with image, wealth and glitz.

"Greetings" presents a serialized narrative of the central characters who populate the constantly-changing Kelbow family. The central mother figure, Fanny, suffers through two miserable marriages and is constantly aware of her own mother's unspoken disapproval of everything she represents. Fanny's first husband, Don, almost dissolves into caricature; he abandons his marriage and dabbles with practically every cultural fad that Southern California seems to spawn. Andrew, the central character of the novel, is singularly unappealing. His intelligence and sense of slef distorted by excessive indulgence, Andrew is a bland failure at everything -- jobs, family responsibilites, relationships. Stifled by a self-induced inertia, he wandes through the novel in search of commitment. His brother, Little Mike, is a Jewish nightmare come to life. A high-school drop-out, Little Mike develops a taste for alcohol, drugs and deception; his pathetic attemps at righting his corrupt life are masterful examples of social satire.

The central conceit of the novel, exquisitely prepared gourmet food, ironically balances the novel's central theme: hunger. Ms. Brenner, with humor and trenchant social commentary, savages a Southern California lifestyle that exalts surface satisfaction but hides genuine anguish, loneliness and falsehood. The Kelbows never get it; phony lifestyle and glitzy trappings are exactly that -- illusory, unfulfilling and deceptive. "Greetings from the Golden State" compels us to observe our culture from the perspective of humor and sarcasm; the result is a biting, witty and true indictment of a type of life to which most of us still aspire.