His Mother's Son [Hardcover]

Cai Emmons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2003

Combining the page-turning momentum of a psychological thriller with the finely observed, nuanced portrayal of a domestic drama, playwright and filmmaker Cai Emmons has written an extraordinarily assured first novel that belongs on the shelf beside Sue Miller and Jane Hamilton.
Jana Thomas has built a successful life with a loving husband, a darling six-year-old son, Evan, and a rewarding position as an emergency-room doctor. She has always been a nervous, hypervigilant parent, but Evan’s seemingly normal all-boy tendencies are escalating her worry into something close to hysteria, threatening her job, her marriage, and her motherhood. The real source of Jana's disintegration is a past she has kept buried for sixteen years.
She once had another name, and a younger brother, Varney, to whom Jana was more than a big sister--mother, best friend, interpreter of the world all rolled into one. When Varney violently blew everything apart, Jana ran and never looked back. Until now, when she spots a speck of Varney’s rage in Evan, and the past begins to bleed into the present, gradually overwhelming it. Finally, Jana is forced to plunge into the emotional whirlpool she left behind. The results are shattering, profound, and wrenchingly moving.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Accomplished playwright and filmmaker Emmons tests chilly waters in this ambitious, unsettling debut. Protagonist Jana Thomas not only isn't lovable, she's barely tolerable. Oh, she's the kindest doc in the ER, where she met her carpenter husband, Cooper Johansen, but she's so jumpy and stern a mother, she freaks out other moms. The year Evan is six, his aggressiveness drives her to the edge. In the eyes of Cooper, his mother, Seretha, and Evan's teachers, the boy is normally rambunctious and it's Jana who's violent. Here's what Cooper doesn't know and the reader does: Jana's actual name is Cadence Miller. She slipped into a new skin when she was college-age and her brother, Varney, killed their parents, a teacher and a rival student. Jana can't be a laid-back parent like Beth and Walter Miller. She'd been the brilliant, disturbed Varney's only control, but she'd loved him too much; she hadn't been able to save him or his victims. She must do better with Evan. The last quarter of the book brings dying Varney back into Jana's life; her two identities fuse and she is permitted to be herself again. Emmons's prose is generally clear and precise, but a smattering of awkward descriptive phrases ("his breathing crackles with the kind of unpredictability of a package being unwrapped"; "air ticking noisily over saliva-furred teeth") muddy the tone. Despite these lapses, and the difficulty of sympathizing with Emmons's narrator, this is a notable debut, a rich read with a generous, redemptive ending.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Dr. Jana Thomas has a secret that no one knows-not even her husband. Fifteen years before, she had a different life and a different name, which she abandoned when her younger brother murdered their parents and went on a killing spree at his school. Now Jana has a young son, and she begins to panic when she sees the warning signs that no one noticed in her brother. At the same time, she is contacted by her imprisoned brother, who is dying of AIDS; Jana must reveal the truth about her past to her husband while hoping that her son is not genetically predestined to become a crazed killer. A few plot details don't exactly make sense, and it is occasionally hard to sympathize with Jana, who doesn't seem to be particularly angry at her brother for killing their parents, but her confrontation with the ugly past is richly detailed. Fans of Sue Miller will enjoy this first novel by playwright and film industry worker Emmons. For most public libraries.
--Lisa Bier, Southern Connecticut State Univ., New Haven
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st edition (January 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151007349
• ISBN-13: 978-0151007349
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,604,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, disturbing, brilliant, January 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: His Mother's Son (Hardcover)

Cai Emmons's first novel is extraordinarily accomplished. The suspense builds from the prologue on, so that you can't put the book down. In fact, I read it twice. The story portrays the profound challenges and rewards of married and family life, while at the same time luring us into an unsettling territory that we usually only read about in the news. The characters are psychologically complex and true, and the writing is lovely, nuanced, and striking throughout. I'll be thinking about Jana Thomas for a long time to come.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent debut for an important new writer, March 9, 2003

By 

L Goodman-Malamuth "Leslie Goodman-Malamuth" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: His Mother's Son (Hardcover)

This book is disturbing and compelling in the very best way--despite the fact that Jana Thomas and her life, her story don't go down as smoothly as the best lemon meringue pie, it was good to the last crumb. Part medical thriller, part family saga, partly a chronicle of the complicated lives we live today, "His Mother's Son" is an impressive piece of work. Moreover, it touches the heart without making any obvious writerly attempts to do so.

I'm looking forward to more from Cai Emmons.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Written. Characters I Truly Cared About., December 30, 2003

By 

Paula Stout (Wichita, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: His Mother's Son (Hardcover)

I just finished the book and I totally loved it. I will probably read it again because it was saturated with detail - I also really miss the characters already.

"His Mother's Son" perfectly rounds out and portrays the balance between good and evil inside every human. Whether the "evil" is murder or childhood awakenings; it addresses the "bad" in all of us and the fear that this will somehow fly out of control if we ignore the thoughts and tendancies.

However, this book not only paints the images of fear and balance, Cai Emmons does an INCREDIBLE job of painting her characters. These characters seem so real and not at all fabricated in any way. I found a little of myself inside each character in this story and found myself caring deeply about what happened next to each of them.

I found myself wishing the story would go on and on and my only complaint is that it ended too abruptly for me. However; if it were up to me I suppose there would have been no end.

As far as technicalities, the only distraction I had during the reading was one typo (page 17) and the repeated use of one word "sinewy". It is such an odd word, to see it at least 9 times in one book was a bit distracting to me. Then again, I may be just a little obsessive compulsive in my inability to ignore patterns. :)

I remained totally engaged with this book through the entire 8 hours it took for me to complete it. Cai Emmons constantly switched back and forth between second and third person voices... and I never really noticed it until 3/4 through the book. Even then it was so well done that I was not distracted by it at all which makes me wonder if that is how I was kept engaged.

I very much recommend this book and admire Cai Emmons as a writer. I sincerely appreciate the fact that I never felt manipulated as a reader, nor did I find anything in the book predictable. I anxiously await her next offering if there is one.

Paula