Customer Reviews

The Promis of Happiness

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rather than provide another comprehesive review, which has already been accomplised by previous reviewers, I will simply add this; that Cartwright reminds us in The Promise of Happiness of the preordained roles family members are assigned for life. No matter how our lives change, there is a dynamic established during childhood with our parents and our siblings that remains intact. Juliet Judd was, and alwlays will be, the Judd's brightest star, though all three children possessed strengths. This is a testment to the significance and lasting impact childhood and family has on the individual.

There are many different types of "family novels" being written in today's insular world, and sadly not all of them are worth reading. There are those that read like personal memoirs --- maudlin accounts of dysfunctional upbringings and unforgotten family rifts that often sound like the author is using his or her writing to work through psychological problems left over from childhood (i.e. whining). There are also those that boast an overarching theory about The State of The Contemporary Family and a ripped-apart value system without really delivering a graspable narrative. And then there are those that, despite their minor flaws, deliver an amicable mix of engrossing story and "state-of-things philosophizing" so that by the time the book has concluded, its readers feel that they not only have had an entertaining and informative look-see into someone else's family life, but that they have also realized a thing or two about their own.

Man Booker-shortlisted and Whitbread-winning author Justin Cartwright's latest offering is thankfully the latter of the three. A slow-to-unfold yet rightfully deliberate stroll through the contours of human suffering and a story that recognizes the importance of hope as an offset to seemingly irreversible tragedy, THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS describes one family's pieced-together attempt at redemption following a far-reaching misfortune that threatens to break them apart permanently.

At 32, Juliet Judd is at the height of her life. She has a cheeky, hip gallery-owner boyfriend, a gorgeous Upper East Side apartment, an Oxford education and a prestigious job at the preeminent Christie's in New York. In the midst of it all, she is convicted of an alleged crime --- it is questionable whether she plays an active part in it or not --- and is sentenced to what turns out to be three years in prison. The fact that there were others responsible for stealing and reselling the Tiffany's glass window is beside the point, according to the court. She is the one who wrote the checks. She is the one with the prestigious reputation. She is the one who must take the fall.

In her absence, the Judd family silently unravels --- each in their own twisted struggle to reconcile the condemnation of their prodigal daughter/sister. Her father Charles loses his business as well as his grasp on reality, withering away into a frail shadow of his former self. Her mother Daphne realizes the depths of her unhappiness and tries to fill the seemingly endless empty hours with pointless cooking classes and gardening. Her sister Sophie drops out of school, starts doing drugs, and has an affair with her boss, twenty years her senior. Her brother Charlie, despite becoming successful in a burgeoning self-started Internet business, enters into a relationship with a gorgeous yet seemingly vacuous woman, Ana. Although Ana is pregnant and they have plans to marry, it is questionable as to whether or not Charlie actually loves her. Without Ju-Ju to hold the family together, the Judds flounder about, wounded and self-righteous in their efforts to block out what has befallen them.

Fast-forward three years and Juliet is being released from prison. In preparation for her return home, a number of intentional (and unintentional) transformations take place. Charlie plans to go ahead with the wedding and Daphne makes arrangements for an elaborate celebration --- bringing together her old family with the new, all in a blind hope to restore peace and humility to their shattered world. Sophie breaks up with her married boyfriend, takes out her nose ring (a small yet symbolic gesture) and plans to move home for the summer to get her life in gear. Even Charles, although he has the hardest time of it, takes pains to get past his depression enough to forgive his daughter (and himself) for all that has transpired in her absence.

What makes THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS so touching and worthwhile is not so much the actual circumstances of Charlie's, Sophie's, Daphne's, Charles's or Juliet's lives, but how each one deals with the randomness of what happens to them in relation to how they define themselves as individuals and as part of a breathing, functioning family unit in the world. "And so this is life. It is arbitrary; its narrative is erratic. [They] have been given a harsh understanding of the human condition. [They] didn't ask for it, or seek it." But they must keep moving and growing together, nonetheless.

As Tolstoy once wrote as the opening first lines to ANNA KARENINA, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Justin Cartwright's eighth novel is a true testament to the disparaging trials any family might encounter and to what ends they might have to travel to make it through to the other side.

--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

The last few years have been rough on the usually successful Judd family of Cornwall, England. It started three years ago when prodigal daughter art historian Juliet was convicted in New York for selling stolen Tiffany windows purloined from a Queens cemetery. She has just been released from prison though she never committed the crime; her boyfriend actually stole the contraband.

Her father is ashamed by the desecration almost as much as the conviction; he also struggles with having lost his position several years ago. Her brother Charlie, a successful business man, picks his sister up at the airport, but remains distant from her as she let him down with the theft; he also contemplates whether he really wants to marry though he is engaged to do so shortly. Her other sibling Sophie the TV producer blames her shortcomings on Juliet's disgrace though the drugs and the married man is all her own doing. Meanwhile mom avoids everyone's issues as she hides behind cooking. The five Judds are back in Cornwell for the first time in years and will either kill each other or turn to each other for comfort.

Readers will run the gamut of emotions as they will see their own family in the distraught Judd brood. The tale is obviously character driven as the quintet elicits laughter and tears for an enthralled audience who will wonder if Justin Cartwright is writing about their family. Fans will appreciate this powerful look at family foolishness that makes the Judds us and us the Judds.

Harriet Klausner

There are some moments of wit and clarity here. But it feels like a tired cliche of a family that is sort of falling apart and then trying to come together for a big wedding. How many times has this story been told? There is a lot of nonsense in the book about American-ness and British-ness, and some rather harsh invective against Latin Americans and basically anyone who doesn't fit into this clannish, dysfunctional family. Ju-Ju, the prodigal daughter, has been thrown in jail perhaps on false charges, and a lot of effort is expended about talking about her brilliance, her suffering, her amazingness, etc. But when her character appears, there is really no evidence for any of these broad claims. She exists solely in the author's imagination, without doing anything, never demonstrating any of the adulation the author gives her. There is also a bizarre semi-incestuous feeling between Charlie and Ju-Ju, which seems to interfere with his interest in marrying his pregnant girlfriend. The plot is really trite. Much of the dialogue is "typically English" to an extreme. There is a lot of coldness and nationalism here. But there are moments of clarity and wit. If you scan through the book, looking for bon mots, then you will probably enjoy it much more than trying to push your way through the full tortuous plot. Tantalizing bits of this book are far more fun and suggestive than trying to read the whole mess.

This book promised to be a family pastoral, with all the requisite stock characters of a dysfunctional family...

You have the eldest daughter who was the apple of her father's eyes but lands in jail for an art theft; the ne'er do well son who is engaged to a European bombshell he is vaguely in love with, and who suddenly finds himself taking on the role of the responsible one in the family; the youngest and the runt of the family who fashions herself as a punkish Bridget Jones, with nose-ring and a drug habit, who sleeps with her boss; the mother who oversees the disintegration of her family and the deterioration of her husband, etc etc... all gearing towards the climactic reunion and a wedding at the end, almost hollywoodish in its idealism...

At times humorous, but just missing the mark with the attempts to capture quick-witted moments in its suddenly short exchanges between the characters - the effect is that of uneven writing... quite a letdown...

As I got deeper into this novel, I enjoyed it more and more. Sure, it doesn't hurt that its beginning is a real downer, focusing on the depressed Charles Judd, while the novel has a happy ending. What really helped was that some things which bothered me began to make more and more sense: Juliet's actions when she was on trial, the impact on Charles, the desertion of Juliet's lover. I am still bothered that Sophie would react so strongly to Juliet's conviction: she had been off drugs for a year, and went back on them (p.177); the novel never established a relationship between Juliet and Sophie which would account for that.

Cartwright's literary prose is a pleasure to read and all his characters come alive, and deepen as the novel progresses. The troubled married life of the senior Judd's is richly and economically drawn.

Juliet "Ju-Ju" Judd never really believed she would end up spending two years in a Federal Correctional Facility in upstate New York. She'd been working as a high profile art dealer when she was sentenced for conspiring to illegally sell a stolen Tiffany Window. Although she didn't actually take it, she took the blame because she divvied up the money and wrote the checks. Wracked with shame, she blamed it on her love affair with Ritchie, her partner in crime, who led her down the path of shady dealings and corrupt transactions.

We first meet Juliet just as she's being released from prison and her dependable brother Charlie has arrived in the States to take her home to England. It has been two years of hell for this intelligent and quietly enigmatic girl, and her sudden incarceration has splintered and fractured her family.

Mired in humiliation, Ju-Ju's parents, Daphne and Charles retire to a ramshackle cottage on the windswept coast of Cornwall, devastated at their daughter's plight. Always the apple of his eye, Charles can't bear the thought that everyone knows his precious daughter is in gaol. Ju-Ju's younger sister Sophie, battles drug addiction, whilst working as a film advertiser in London. And Charlie, the family success story, is making his fortune selling socks over the Internet.

For two years, the Judd family has stumbled into darkness; Daphne - never actually believing that Ju-Ju was guilty - finds solace in prayer, cooking classes and flower arranging. She hopes for a resolution, a manifestation of family, where one day they can all get together in Cornwall. Charles, bitter at being forcibly retrenched from a prestigious law firm in London, endlessly studies the cliffs and ekes out his days on the local golf course.

Obviously they've coped badly, even the dog-committed suicide, and then there where Daphne's ghastly and tense visits to the prison to see Ju-Ju in America. Author Justin Cartwright steadily unveils the family dynamics, with Ju-Ju's imprisonment affecting each of them in vastly different ways. Caught in an ethical dilemma, Charles refuses to go to America to see his daughter because he just couldn't bare to see Ju-Ju suffer; he feared the sight of her in a prison uniform would demolish the unsteady edifice that his life has become, he even admits, "I am being punished for my cowardice."

Charles is the moral center of this novel, yet he is the one who loses his bearings and the one most affected by Ju-Ju's incarceration. Wracked with disenchantment and deeply cynical, he tries desperately to blame 9/11: "all the foreigners were suspect; the dragnet caught my Ju-Ju." And he's angry that his life hadn't turned out the way it should have and that all the hope he had invested in his daughter has come to nothing. He'd always imagined that he could shield their children from all that is harsh and lonely in the world.

The Promise of Happiness is all about the search to regain contentment in a world that has become far from bucolic. England is transforming and within this change, the Judd family finds it difficult to reconnect - intimacy does not come easy for them. They're also a family who are somewhat clannish and critical, even Daphne believes they are "from some natural aristocracy, "whilst Charles just wants to "pull up the drawbridge against the barbarians."

Ju-Ju's experience has caused them to go through a forced and very necessary cycle of change. Her release from prison brings a new awareness, challenging their guilt and their willingness to encapsulate a grief that has so dominated their lives. Cartwright has written a complex and multifaceted story that explores the terrible costs of avoiding happiness. His themes are profound - the importance of beauty, class, and family and the idea that art is different from the rest of life, something pure and more authentic.

Throughout the novel, the Judd family is faced with some critical choices - especially Charles, as he's the type of old-style reserved Englishman who knows he's out of touch with the modern world and holds a lot back. It is only through Ju-Ju's eventual arrival back in London that this family can be reunited and begin to move on, and perhaps start to heal from this terrible tragedy that has so dominated their lives. Mike Leonard May 06.

The plot is not so much a plot as a situation that gets chewed over and over and OVER and the characters collections of traits relentlessly described by the author --JuJu's brilliance, dad's creepy melancholia, mom's low self-esteem -- but not really coming to life as individuals. In fact, they remained so undifferentiated it was often difficult to tell who was speaking during the meandering patches of dialog. The bathos-laden ruminations on Art, History, and the Meaning of Americanism were truly cringe-making, and I couldn't tell if the author intended them to be taken seriously or was demonstrating how sophomoric JuJu & co. actually were. I admit I only made it halfway through the book. In light of the glowing reviews, I can only assume it does a brilliant turn-around and out-performs Tolstoy on the home stretch. But after reading the first claustrophobic half, I was desperate for air and willing to break any number of Tiffany windows to make my escape.

It took a couple of chapters to get into it, but was a good read. Families can be very dynamic and this family is. They stick together and help one another.

In The Promise of Happiness Charles Judd surely utters the best line in contemporary fiction. It's worth waiting for. And that's without his priceless description of Mexican food (as served in London's Covent Garden).

On coming across a couple of the poor reviews on the UK site I admit to having been rather baffled. To be sure, this isn't a gripping book, just as most dysfunctional families can't exactly be described as gripping, but for me this novel was as exciting as a French kiss. We become so immersed in the Judd family that in the end our minds become steeped in the very essence of each one of them.

On the other hand, I'm also baffled (but hey, who am I) by those reviewers who said that they couldn't put the book down. Not because I don't share their enthusiastic sentiments but because each chapter is told from the point of view of just one character. This to me is a huge strength but could it also be the novel's weakness? I'm not sure, but I found it impossible to read more than one chapter at a time, just as I find it impossible to listen to all 24 of the Rachmaninov Preludes in one go - though of course each is brilliant on its own. Still, in this case it just means that one can savour this beautiful book all the longer.

I noticed that Justin Cartwright has two sons, though no daughter. All the more remarkable then (okay, perhaps not) that he manages to portray the Judds' daughter, Ju Ju, with such vivid and complex authenticity; some of the scenes with her brother are simply electrifying. But then every member of the Judd family gets to have their big moment (though it could even be argued that the entire novel is a collection of Judd family big moments). Me, I couldn't get enough of them.

If there's one minor disappointment - though call me a Philistine - it's that Cartwright chooses to lecture us, through Ju Ju, rather too fulsomely on the minutiae of Tiffany windows, something that completely fails to ignite my interest. I guess you had to be there. These passages (and alas, there are more than one) are the only boring ones in the entire book. But then everybody's allowed to be boring every now and again so Ju Ju is to be easily forgiven. And if I ever had what would be the intense pleasure of reading a further 300 pages about the Judd family I'd of course forgive her all over again.