Customer Reviews

Somebody Else's Daughter

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is a dark, disturbing novel that was difficult to put down. I thought Brundage tackled some heavy issues in her debut novel, The Doctor's Wife, but she took on an even more massive load in Somebody Else's Daughter. Adoption, alcoholism, drug addiction, pornography, sexual abuse, murder, AIDS, prostitution, adultery. Thanks to Brundage's skill as an author, there is a lot going on, but it doesn't overwhelm. She slowly weaves together seemingly disparate story lines and characters in a masterful way that never fails to leave me in awe of her talent as a storyteller.

What I love about Brundage is how she sets up her story. She takes her time, slowly creating a sense of place and developing her characters superbly. All of this is imbued with a subtle, underlying sense of suspense. I find myself reading her opening chapters with relish, knowing that she is building, gradually and deliberately, a gripping crescendo.

A distinct difference between this novel and Brundage's debut, for me, was the likability of the characters. Though The Doctor's Wife held me in its grip, I struggled to truly like any of the characters, despite the fact that they were extremely well-developed. Reading Somebody Else's Daughter, I found it easy to love several characters. Willa was conflicted and sensitive, spurning many of the elitist attitudes she had been raised in the midst of. Several of the characters - Willa's adoptive parents, Claire the feminist sculptor, Claire's pot-smoking son Teddy - were flawed but basically, in the end, good people. And Willa's biological father, Nate, well, I kind of fell in love with him ... a struggling writer with a past, he was handsome, passionate, wise, and sensitive - a perfect hero.

I read Somebody Else's Daughter in one sitting last night, pulling my first all-nighter since college; I literally couldn't get to sleep without knowing what was going to happen.

I found the novel thrilling, suspenseful, and incredibly well written. The detail involved in depicting each character's inner thoughts and differing assessments of various situations ws truly fantastic. I'm an avid reader and I can't remember the last time I was this wowed by a novel.

From the very first page I was completely caught up in the lives of these characters. This is a novel about several families who are challenged by frustrating times. The story revolves around a group of people who are involved with a private school in the Berkshires. Nate, a recovered heroin addict and struggling writer, returns to the town where he had given up his baby in a private adoption seventeen years before. He is an interesting and likable character who is anxious to find resolution in his life. Other characters come into his life, including his biological daughter, Willa. I don't want to say too much to give the story away, but I became a fan of this writer when I read her first book and I was very happily surprised by this one, which is just as gripping, but somehow even more intense. I highly recommend it. If you like thrillers, but also like good literary fiction,this is a combination of both. Read it!

I was drawn into Somebody Else's daughter from the first page. Ms. Brundage created characters who were complex, believable, and ultimately like all of us- flawed or scarred in some way. I appreciated her female characters, all different, yet representative of issues women face and how they handle them. Her descriptions were poignant and the voices were real. Elizabeth, through character development, showed us the vulnerablity and disappointment of her male characters. She beautifully gave the point of view of the father having to give up his daughter for adoption, the porn-king struggling with his identity as a provider, husband and father, and the head of school fighting his personal demons. This is a thriller that packs an emotional punch. Whether you read for a great story, or you prefer character development and thought-provoking issues- this is the read for you!

While the subject matter of the book was intriguing to me after reading the "blurb" on the back of the book, I found that the book wasn't really ABOUT somebody else's daughter. In my opinion, Brundage took a brilliant theme of fathers and daughters and twisted it into a commentary on feminism, abuse, infidelity, art, drugs... the list goes on. The book is dark and while the characters are well-developed, their interactions (especially those that are "climactic moments") are brief and unimpressive. For example, the realization by Willa's adopted father that the "mystery man teacher" is her birth father, takes 2.5 paragraphs. In the last half of that 3rd paragraph, they "kiss and make up."

Somebody Else's Daughter is an interesting, frustrating read...but not for the reasons Brundage intended. I felt overwhlemed by her commentary through the characters instead of the story and theme itself.

Elizabeth Bundage's Somebody Else's Daughter is a beautifully written tale of the interconnected lives of three New England families. The novel begins as a character study, shifting its focus from perspective to perspective as we begin to unravel the mysteries and secrets that both separate and connect Bundage's many characters. Nate, a public school teacher (and recovered drug addict) with dreams of being a "real writer," accepts a job at a fancy prep school in the Berkshires, where he will have a chance to secretly get to know his daughter Willa, who was put up for adoption in infancy after her mother died of AIDS. If this sounds a bit convoluted, fasten your seatbelts, because it's just the beginning! As the story progresses, we find ourselves enmeshed in an intricate web of lies, yearning, deceit, love, and dreams. Brundage asks us to consider whether it is fate or coincidence that directs the story of our lives; she suggests that it is fate, and a fate directed by forces far greater than ourselves. This is not a religious novel, but it is a spiritual one, with characters seeking help in many forms as they navigate their very precarious journeys. The prose is poetic, the story is hauntingly addictive, and the novel is very hard to put down.

The most impressive aspect of the novel may be Bundage's ability to slowly build her characters by revealing them to us in subtle stages - we learn more about them from the perspective of their friends and enemies, than we do from their own internal musings, and finally they appear to us as full-blooded and fascinating. The opinions we form about them at the start of the novel are quite different from those we end up with - and that's both surprising and satisfying.

The only negative (and I hesitate to use such a pejorative word) is the rather "Hollywood thriller" ending, with the obligatory rush to rescue a character in peril and then a bit too many hearts and flowers. It all happens too quickly, and somehow I was left feeling a little let down. I wanted a more complex conclusion, which is what these characters deserved. I had the odd feeling that Brundage was hoping for a film deal (and the novel WOULD make a good movie).

Overall, Somebody Else's Daughter is a powerful and meaningful story with memorable characters that will stay with you long after you've finished reading. I highly recommend it.

As she did in The Doctor's Wife, Elizabeth Brundage has once again given us a compulsively readable, compelling story of the complicated secrets that lurk beneath the idyllic surface of small town life. Somebody Else's Daughter examines the interconnected lives of students and parents at an exclusive private school in the Berkshires, in the process exploring important subjects like adoptive parenting, drug use, and our fractured expectations for and treatment of women. Her writing is lovely and her characters ring true, and, like with the best of literature, the story here grabs the reader and never lets go. Somebody Else's Mother is one of the most satisfying books I have read this year.

After reading the Doctors Wife, I couldn't wait to read this one. I enjoyed it and think Elizabeth is a very creative writer. The only thing about the two books is that her stories are so captivating that the endings do not measure. I hope that in her next books she will build a conclusion that is better suited.

I live in the very place where this great novel is set - America's 'premier cultural resort' - the Berkshires. In fact, my son once attended the 'minor public school' (as us Brits call a stuck-up and snotty but essentially crap private school) which may have inspired the elite prep school where the narrative is set. Imagine then how delicious it is to be gripped by a subtle and yet savage dissection of all the bourgeois denial, dysfunction and pretension that I myself witnessed. Violence, frustrated and inadequate men's hatred of women, addiction and seething class resentment infuse this narrative. Not for those who are in denial about the hollowing out of America's soul and how greed and violence have percolated into the very nicest places... Not for those who like to chat about Franzen and Oprah-lite fiction over canapes at book clubs. Not for those desperate to belong to the upper middle classes [harder and harder to achieve unless you rob and con on Wall Street], and think the NY TImes is oh-so liberal, and if you tolerate most men. But if you're a grown up, and love to see nice America turn slowly on a skewer, you'll love it. I'd like to send it to all the parents at my son's former school - the kind of place that exploited fear and anxiety about the great unwashed and yet was full of falsity and pretension. Just like polite America. Again, a brilliant satiric romp from Brundage. Warning - stay away if you are on Prozac. You'll need an extra dose.

I came to this book after reading Ms. Brundage's latest novel "A Stranger Like You" because I was so taken by her writing style. This earlier book did not disappoint. Brundage has a way of taking what would be prosaic genre writing by anyone else and turning it into a literary work of art. The secret of her success lies with the characters and they control the plot as opposed to the other way around. There is mystery here but what drew me in were the portrayals of Maggie, Willa and Claire. They are full-bodied, three-dimensional characters who make the story come alive. I'm going to check out The Doctor's Wife next!