A Member of the Family [Hardcover]

Susan Merrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2000

"Beware: This extraoridnary work of fiction is for courageous readers only. Beautifully written, dazzingly conceieved, it makes us think--hard--about what it is to be a parent." -- Lou Ann Walker, author of A Loss for Words

Deborah and Chris Latham have everything they could possibly want: a warm, loving marriage, a beautiful daughter, and a stable life in a sweet resort community on Long Island. When they hear about a small Romanian boy who is languishing in a depressed Eastern European orphanage, neither Deborah nor Chris hesitates for an instant. They want Mihai for their own, and they know they can help him. if any family has enough love to spare, it is the Lathams.

In a matter of months, Mihai becomes Michael Latham. Deborah, Chris, and their three-year-old daughter, Caroline, take him in eagerly, knowing that soon enough he will truly feel like a member of the family. But as time passes, Michael grows more unpredictable, careening between violent behavior and emotional withdrawal. Living with such difficulties in their midst has its cost for all of the Lathams and as each family member responds in their own way, and for their own reasons, the questions begin to surface.

How much love does it take to save a child from his past? Is there such a thing as unconditional parentallove? Should a family's survival take precedence over that of one of its members? Where do you draw the line? And at what cost?

With unflinching honesty, A Member of the Family asks questions most parents never dream of considering. Eloquent and provocative, this exquisitely written novel may break your heart, but you will never forget it.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Jounalist Merrell's heart-wrenching first novel draws on her knowledge of family systems (as revealed in the Accidental Bond: How Sibling Connections Influence Adult Relationships). In the coastal village of Sag Harbor, NY, Deborah and Chris Latham are resolute about having adopted, as an 18-month-old, a Romanian orphan named Michael. But after years of coping with Michael's abudive and difficult behavior, they can no longer watch as his actions begin to affect the well-bing of their marriage and their older daughter, Caroline. The Lathams have to face a parent's worst nightmare. Detailed prose and rich dialog shape this intricate story, which is comparable to the novels of Sue Miller and Chris Bohalian. This provocative book will make every reader think hard about the responsibilities of parenting and the complexities of marriage. A potential Oprah pick; recommended for all public libraries.
Beth Gibbs, P.L. of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Cty., NC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A Member of the Family raises necessary, difficult, and unnerving questions about family and, to its very large credit, gives us no answers, instead compelling us to interrogate our own beliefs, our own hearts. The interrogation continues, long after the last page." -- Martha Cooley, author of The Archivist

"In Susan Merrell's accomplished first novel, we are shown a compassionate but unflinching portrait of a family struggling to come to terms with the complexities and limitations of love a convincing, compelling psychological exploration of a nearly inconceivable moral and social dilemma." -- Marly Swick, author of Evening News

"In this arresting portrait of a family, Susan Merrell probes the nature of maternal love, the impossible choices all parents must make, and the bludgeoning destructiveness of family secrets. I couldn't put it down." -- Susan Cheever, author of Note Found in a Bottle, and Home Before Dark

"Susan Merrell pulls back the curtain on every parent's secret fear: That you can love a child with all your might and sometimes it's still not enough. A Member of the Family will break your heart. A haunting debut." -- Elsa Walsh, author of Divided Lives

...a heartbreaking story about an adoption gone very wrong; more generally, it's about the limits of familial love. -- The New York Times Book Review, Betsy Groban

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers; 1st edition (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060192801
• ISBN-13: 978-0060192808
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,248,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moral Family Crisis in a Small Town, March 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Member of the Family (Hardcover)

"A Member of the Family" graphically explores an almost unutterable question: What if you don't want your five-year-old? In this case, the young boy is an adopted Romanian orphan named Michael, welcomed into the seemingly perfect Latham family, a dynamic trio of smart, well-educated father, mother and daughter who lives in Sag Harbor, NY.

Michael -- it becomes increasingly apparant -- has attachment disorder, and the brutal manifestations of this are tearing apart the Lathams.

Susan Merrell manages to be everywhere at once in this compelling novel. She captures the daily intimacy within a family, the difficulties universal to parenthood, and the moral and ethical conflicts surrounding adoption. She also creates a breathtakingly detailed small town life, managing all the many graceful threads that stitch together a community. The reader will recognize the subtle social protocols and rules if she or he has ever been part of a tight (or seasonal) community. Michael's story becomes more than one family's crisis; the whole town contributes.

With neither maudlin sentimentality nor moral preachiness, Merrell stirs up a ghostly subject which grips the reader completely until the final page.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complicated Love, March 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Member of the Family (Hardcover)

I bought A Member of the Family because I'm interested in family dynamics and adoption. I'm also very fond of Sag Harbor where the story takes place. I was surprised and delighted to discover that the book is far more than a family melodrama, investigation of a single issue or portrait of a quaint town: it is a meditation on the nature of love in the tradition of the great novels.

Ms. Merrell presents a sophisticated view of our motivations for loving others (children, spouses, friends), ranging from the selfless to the utterly self-serving, by deploying seemingly unrelated subplots and characters (including a remarkably original personification of evil in the character of the upstanding town father Martin Dunn). She deftly pulls the loose strings together and, in so doing, illustrates how every individual's life is inextricable from those of others, the community, social class and the past.

The book builds the kind of tension I associate with mystery thrillers. I found I couldn't stop reading it, as if the mystery of love could be solved and the guilty parties exposed. Ms. Merrell is too profound a writer to resort to that kind of easy satisfaction. Instead she paints a picture that feels emotionally truer than any pat answers ever could.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Responsibility's Unexplored Length, March 23, 2000

By 

Martha S. Samuelson "davidsamuelson" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Member of the Family (Hardcover)

In "A Member of the Family," Susan Merrell asksquestions too difficult to be normally exposed to society -- moralquestions that tug on the very strings of human interaction. Through exquisite subplots, livid and constantly developing references to the many characters' painful pasts, and, mainly, the daily challenges of all 4 members of the Latham family, the value of human realtionships is examined and compared to that of responsibility. In no way is this the story of only 4 characters; this story thoroughly covers the unique town of Sag Harbor from "locals" to "city people", from rich to poor, from content to unhappy to dead. While the town itself is brought to color, seemingly random people are brilliantly created to interact and grow among each other and their respective pasts, leading up to a brilliant conclusion in which Susan Merell attacks the weight of responsibility. Not only is there responsibility in how to deal with their adopted son, Michael, but there is responsibility even in accepting that there is a problem, in Chris Latham's responsibility for the past, in Deborah Latham's reasoning of why she choses to befriend certain people, and, prehaps most vividly, in the horrific relationship between Michael and his sister, Caroline. Susan Merell therefore tests responsibility to unforseen levels, and, regardless of your agreement with character's reasoning, every character acts in interesting, unique, yet well thought out ways. This novel is gauranteed to pose questions most people never thought about (mainly yet not only about the possible reversibility of the adoption process), and, therefore, further educate the reader on the very nature of human interactions and relationships. This is the best book I have read in quite some time, and I could not recommend it more.