Customer Reviews

Labor Day: A Novel

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read "The Usual Rules" by Joyce Maynard years ago and just loved it. I thought then what a gift this author had for teen-age voices. Now in, "Labor Day" her prowess shines brightly and poignantly.

Henry, our 13 year old narrator, shares a most remarkable story of a Labor Day weekend. His fragile, sensitive, and deeply troubled mother, Adele and he accept an escaped convict into their minute, reclusive lives. Harboring, Frank, deepens Henry's insight into the world that exists outside four walls. Improbability may conjure, but irony plays their lives like a fine violin. Adele, Frank and Henry are all imprisoned by grief, loss, tragedy and heartbreak, but within each other find elusive freedom to hope. To try again. To explore possibilities. I will not share more as you need to read this book to interpret your own understanding of human nature and all it's idiosyncrasies.

Beautifully written descriptions, profound understanding of the human condition, irony, and a flowing story makes this a book I must recommend. I know long after this book resides on my shelves, I will remember Henry and all a thirteen year old had to teach this aging skeptic.

Lovely job, Ms. Maynard.

Gayla Collins

Over the space of a Labor Day weekend in 1987, thirteen year old Henry's life is forever changed when he and his mother meet fugitive Frank Chambers. In an odd encounter, Frank approaches Henry and judging him trustworthy, asks Henry and his mother Adele to take him home with them, and for reasons known only to them, they do. During the next few days, Frank ingratiates himself into their lives, teaching Henry to play baseball and bake a pie, and falling in love with the quirky, depressive Adele. The three live within the cocoon of the world they create as the rest of the community searches for Frank, an escaped murderer. As the days pass, Frank's bitter story emerges; wrongly accused of murdering his wife and child, he took the first chance he got to escape, and with his gentle ways and care, he slowly brings Adele back to life and helps Henry confront his confusion over a mostly uninvolved father and a helpless mother.

Written in Maynard's trademark spare style, this odd set-up somehow works its magic and pulls you in. Told from Henry's point of view, we experience all the longings of a young teen with too much responsibility. Henry is somewhat of a social outcast; his mother has burdened him with her inability to function outside her home so that he is her only lifeline to the world. Frank, a Viet Nam vet, somehow makes the three into a family in a short period of time, knowing it won't last but grasping at whatever freedom he can achieve, both from his past and his present. Henry makes both good and bad choices here; both typical and atypical, Henry's a main character filled with confusion, at the mercy of parents too concerned with themselves to worry much about him.

I at first let the premise of allowing an escaped felon into your home willingly get in the way of my enjoyment of this novel, but once I set aside my own worries over the probability of this happening, I found that I was immersed in this story of old beyond his years Henry and his nervous, needy mother. Maynard's characters are real and poignant, and Henry tells the story honestly. Moving and desperate, this coming of age tale will pull you into its depths and leave you thinking about it long after you close the last page.

Six days in the life of a thirteen-year-old boy, over Labor Day, profoundly affect his life, and the life of his family. Telling the story through the protagonist, Henry, author Joyce Maynard nails the angst and desires of a young teen, and aptly describes his emotions as he deals with change within his troubled and wounded family. The other characters in this slender book are drawn just as sympathetically. Poignant, touching, even bittersweet, this novel is a powerful lesson on love and loss. From the haunting image on the cover, to the last six words, I was captivated. There will be no dust on this moving book, as I'm sharing it with my friends and family.

I read this book 2 months ago and have taken some time to write this review... I wanted to let it settle, linger in my mind a bit. The author captures the point of view / narrative of a 13-year old perfectly. The story, bittersweet and sad, is very readable and definitely a page turner. Along with "The Help", this is one of the books that I've thought about quite a bit since I put it down, and plan to re-read it.

The story is engrossing; and better yet - completely unpredictable. I don't want to write too much and spoil it, but suffice it to say that the activities of one Labor Day weekend affected both young Henry and his mother for the rest of their lives. This is one of the best books I've read this year.

Definitely recommended.

This book was so good and yet I could not help feeling it had the potential to be so much more. What frustrated me the most aside from Maynard getting the Charlie's Angel character name wrong throughout the book (Kate Jackson's character was named Sabrina, not Jill who was the Farrah Fawcett character, was the sense that this book was a rush job and lacked a certain sophistication and polish. I would come to learn that she wrote the book in a mere 10 days so maybe there is something to this. I really would have liked to see someone along the way put more effort into fact checking. Not sure how this could have been missed (Editors?)?

That said, it was a great story in many ways. I loved how pie-making took on a larger metaphor for the respect one human being chooses to show to another and how a person can grow and change simply due to this.

The Adele character, although having suffered a great loss, irked me in the way she seemed to give up on her only living child. This is but one viewpoint and I could not come to hate her but there are many people who have suffered equally horrible fates and chose not to hole themselves up in their houses living only on frozen fish dinners and canned soup.

I could not help to feel sorry for Henry who really was the one to get the short end of the stick so many times over. Yes, I realize that Frank was not at all who he initially seemed but there is something so inherently stupid about a mother who would knowingly puts her own child at risk without really ever knowing for sure who this guy was and what he was capable of? Yes it is a great love story, but seriously, I can't think of anyone I know who would exercise such poor judgment with her child and come off so competely gullible. This part did not ring true to me.

Even still, this book does have the potential to illuminate the human condition in a gentle and lovely way although I myself would have preferred more of a spark and a bang.

Oh, and I just wish she would have gotten the Charlie's Angel thing right!

Henry is a misfit 13-year-old who lives with his depressed and slightly mentally unstable mother. On a rare shopping trip to Pricemart, they are approached by a injured man (a prison escapee) who talks them into taking him home. Both mother and son quickly become attached to him.

While that scenario may seem a bit far-fetched, the book was really very good. The characters and their emotions were real and believable and the story was very sad and touching. I enjoyed it very much.

It's been years since I've read a book in one sitting. But yesterday I picked up Labor Day and didn't put it down until I was finished. Immediately, Henry pulls you right in. And the Labor Day weekend in 1987, before he enters the 7th grade, is an awakening. This book was in no way a mystery or a thriller, but it makes you want to keep going so you find out what happens in the end. It's not so much the actual events that make up this book, but rather the emotional relationships and the coming of age of 13 year old Henry.

The book is narrated by Henry as an adult looking back on that Labor Day weekend. He's considered a "loser", last to be picked in gym class, no friends to speak of. When a mysterious man enters his life, and ultimately his mother's, he finds that perhaps he's not quite the loser he thinks he is. And when everything unravels, he gains an understanding that most adults never reach.

I highly recommend this novel. It's a refreshing read.

This book, told from the perspective of a 13 year old boy, has several quirky characters not least of which is his mother. If you concede the premise that a young boy and his mother would pick up a strange man at the local discount store then the rest of the story may make sense. I just wonder how much Maynard was influenced by Salinger in her creation of this coming of age story of this young man. I also found that the introduction of the Eleanor character was a cop out and relieved Henry of really having to make a choice.

A touching coming of age novel wrapped around a quirky and unconventional love story between a single Mom and an escaped con.

I kept thinking that, if they ever made it into a movie, it is the type of thing the Coen brothers might venture into. I won't spoil the surprise.

I've never read anything before by Joyce Maynard and read fiction only infrequently.

Loved this book! Highly recommend...

I have always been a fan of this author and this book didn't disappoint. It's written from the perspective of the son in the story and at first I thought I wouldn't like that but it was an absolutely riveting book. It's a very unusual tale of a mother and son that have a unexpected visitor (don't want to give the story away) and their interaction is fascinating. Read this. You will love it.