Snapshots [Hardcover]

William Norris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 2001

Snapshots engages our endless fascination with what goes on behind other people's closed doors. It's that particularly American brand of literature that puts the ideal middle-class suburban family under a microscope and exposes the heartaches, fears, and secrets not visible to the naked eye.

William Norris's first novel is a portrait of the Mahoneys as they appear in 1997, then working back through twenty-five years, filling in the rich, deep hues of the life that has shaped their relationships. And in the shadows of alcoholism, homosexuality, and mental illness, the Mahoneys love and hate one another, save one another, and break one another's hearts. Norris lays bare the secrets that mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters keep from themselves and each other, and ultimately tells a hopeful story about the bonds of flesh and blood and shared experience. A story about the real, hard-won joy of family.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Like a home movie flickering backwards in time, this novel presents scenes featuring each of the four Mahoney siblings, starting with a Christmas reunion as adults in 1997 and winding back to a day spent at the beach as children in 1972. The Mahoneys are a resolutely Irish Catholic family, living in an affluent New Jersey suburb and struggling with serious problems. Gifted artist Kate has found, at last, the right combination of meds to control her bipolar disorder; pediatrician Patty has admitted that she is an alcoholic; Nora has finally revealed her homosexuality; and Sean, who always preferred cooking to baseball, is working as a chef in London. It is a tribute to Norris' gift for characterization that these stories do not read like melodrama; in particular, eldest daughter Kate's struggle with mental illness is richly and sympathetically detailed. Although, at times, the tone of the novel is uneven, with Norris racing to rotate characters, his skillful reversal of time points up the immutable connection between past and present. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“Norris beautifully captures the intimacies of family life.”–Kirkus Reviews
 
“A vivid tale of family bonds.” –Hartford Courant
 
“Norris renders anecdotes of family conflict and nurturing—some trivial, others tragic—with energy and compassion.” –Publishers Weekly
 
“Richly and sympathetically detailed.”–Booklist
 
“A gripping portrayal of how a family deals with its heartbreaks and tragedies… Norris offers no easy solutions for a content family, but he develops a vivid picture of the Mahoneys as strong, believable characters, full of virtues and flaws. Readers will find themselves rooting for the Mahoneys in their quest for individual happiness.” –The Irish Echo
 
“Norris has a knack for creating sympathetic characters.” –The Washington Post Book World
 
“Peers beyond the glowing veneer of the successful Mahoney family in suburban New Jersey. In a story that spans 25 years, Norris develops a vivid tale of family bonds….sensual prose”—Hartford Courant
 
“Well-crafted….In short vignettes, alternating rapidly like riffled pages in a photograph album, the Mahoney family is seen through a variety of lenses.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Snapshots is a vivid family portrait, illuminating as it does the strange and complex relationship between past and present. William Norris has a wonderful gift for capturing those ordinary gestures which, like snapshots in a family album, retrospectively emerge as significant and telling in the lives of his engaging and authentic characters. An auspicious debut.”—Katharine Weber, author of The Music Lesson
 
“An honest reflection on the secrets, lies and joys that visit most families—even those that look too good to be true.”—Rocky Mountain News
 

 

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (August 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157322183X
• ISBN-13: 978-1573221832
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,394,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will know the people in this book., October 3, 2001

By 

Gretchen Laskas "Author" (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Snapshots (Hardcover)

This is the sort of book I love to read -- a book where people are well known to me, in their struggles and their day-to-day lives, in their cultural cues, but placed within a form that gives such familiarity a new twist. This is a well crafted novel, about a family in NJ from the 1970-1990s. Anyone who has lived through this period, particularly as a child growing into adulthood, will catch glimpses of herself in SNAPSHOTS. A book that gave me a chance to see how other people lived, even as I knew the people who lived this.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perfect Imperfection of Being Human, October 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Snapshots (Hardcover)

Meet the family as it is still forming in 1972, a mother, a father, a couple of kids. They're at the beach, they're having fun. Travel with them over the course of 20 years, add a couple more children, some problems. No, a lot of problems. Of course there are a lot of problems, it's a family, isn't it? Then bring them all together, the kids grown, the parents finally at peace with each other, for Christmas 1995. Everybody likes everybody else, there's peace and good will. Breathe deep. Now turn the whole thing around. That's what William Norris did, introduced his family as they come together in 1995, brought them--and us, his readers--backward in time, as the history of these individuals unfolds with all the inevitably of a story already written. In vivid, elegant, lean lanaguge, with all the heart that's in him (and us), this rookie novelist takes us into the heart of what it means to live and grow and stumble and fall and land on our feet. From where I'm standing, that's all there is.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Family Life in a Fine First Novel, March 28, 2002

By 

Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" (NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Snapshots (Hardcover)

In his first novel, Snapshots, the author William Norris has crafted a cleverly plotted and worthwhile read. In the tradition of Harold Pinter's works and Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland, Norris has told the story of the Mahoney family using the technique of presenting the family in present times and revealing more about them by moving through the past.

Ww first meet the Mahoney clan at the Jersey Shore as the Mahoney parents wait for each of their four children arrive to celebrate Christmas. Each of these children have past histories with each other and themselves and as in any family there are many emotional dynamics at work. The oldest daughter, a doctor, is coping with her demanding lifestyle and a reliance on alcohol to get through her days. The second daughter, who is married, is dealing with an emotional illness and her reliance on drugs to "keep her normal." The third child, a chef in England, longs to be with his girlfriend and is most content living far from his parents and siblings. Finally trhere is the youngest daughter, a vetenarian who can't bear to be separated from her woman lover whom she met in college. And presiding over this holiday reunion are the Mahoney parents who aren't quite sure who these adults belong to.

As the name of the book implies, readers are offered verbal vignettes about this family which serve as literary snapshots of this family. The book ends when the children are quite young and have spent the day at the Jersey shore with their parents. As they pack up and head for home all is before them but already one senses that some of the seeds have been planted for their futures. And while we as readers know most of the future, it is intriguing to see the children evolve and to put the puzzle pieces together till we finish the book.

This was a poignant novel especially for anybody who has raised a child and wondered "what if" or "why?"

This was a fine first novel to read and savor. And now I look forward to another book by William Norris.