Customer Reviews

Something Red: A Novel

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

 

 

President Jimmy Carter was much maligned for acknowledging a "malaise" that pervaded the United States in the late 1970s; of course, this was because he had a point.

Jennifer Gilmore's Something Red explores the ways in which relationships and attitudes about family, god, love and country diverged and clashed in this time of disillusionment and cultural drift. The author's eye and ear (and, it seems safe to assume, memory) for period detail is terrific; most striking, though, is her attention to another of the senses, as food assumes a central significance in the novel.

The main characters are often defined and separated by what they eat (or don't), and of no small importance is the fact that central figure Sharon Goldstein is a caterer to the power classes of Washington, D.C.; Sharon's 16 year-old daughter, Vanessa, has recently stopped eating meat and drinking alcohol; her son, Ben, newly departed for Brandeis University, is discovering his Jewish roots and becomes involved in a campus protest centered on the introduction of pork and other non-kosher foods to campus dining halls; and the novel itself opens with a family dinner party Sharon hosts as a send-off for Ben, during which the political and religious fault lines running between and within those assembled begin to surface. Gilmore's depiction of a dinner table conversation veering toward disaster is note-perfect and skillfully sets the stage for conflicts to come.

It may be hard to believe that the 1979 U.S. embargo on grain exports to the Soviet Union can become, in 2010, the stuff of genuine narrative tension. Here, though, it does, as Sharon's husband Dennis, an official in President Carter's Department of Agriculture, finds himself suddenly facing the prospect of no longer making regular visits to Moscow to arrange grain deals; he's come to love the city and dreads reassignment to Latin America or Asia, places for which he feels no affinity.

Tensions and estrangements small and large are the focus of this engaging, surprising novel. In a truly challenging and soul-trying time, Jennifer Gilmore's very human and sympathetic characters seek their ways forward, trying to find selves and roles they can live with; the author's empathy and imagination ensure that their efforts, which yield varying results, provide the reward of satisfying narrative and felt emotional truth.

What could have been, but got lost in the storytelling and style, this novel promised much but did not deliver. This is a tale of the Goldstein family, Dennis and his wife Sharon, their two children, and their parents. It is a coming of age story of Ben and Vanessa (the kids) during the time of the Iran hostage crisis, and it describes the relationship between Dennis who is constantly traveling to Russia on government business and Sharon who is starting up a catering/hosting business.

Jewish themes, EST & the personal growth movement, an affair, the Grateful Dead, acid trips, and the Olympics boycott provide the backdrop as the plot moves semi-flashback style through the Goldsteins' past. But we never get to really know the characters in depth nor feel their pain. Throughout the novel I kept waiting for the thread that would pull everything together, to help me understand why I should care about these characters and the events. Somehow the style did not work for me, the writing did not merit the time and energy investment.

So at the end of the book, I wonder what's the point? There were a lot of opportunities to bring the story together, but I don't feel I just know enough or care enough about this family to think twice about the book I have read. There certainly are reminiscences of Carter, the hostage crisis, the embargo, The Dead, and the tenor of the times that bring back a few memories, but in the end, so what? Does all that a good novel make?

"Something Red" is the story of the Goldstein family--dad Dennis, mom Sharon, son Ben (later "Benji"), and daughter Vanessa--during 1979 and 1980. The story begins in August 1979, right before Ben leaves for college, and is told in alternating points of view over the winter and into the spring. Dennis, who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is worried about the effect Jimmy Carter's grain embargo will have on Russia and on his own career. Sixteen-year-old Vanessa, who a year ago was a beer-swilling, pot-smoking party girl, has dropped her old friends for a new boyfriend, punk rock, and a "straight-edge" lifestyle of apparent self-denial that masks a serious eating disorder. Sharon, food-loving co-owner of a catering company, has joined an EST-like self-actualization program called LEAP. And Ben reinvents himself the first week he gets to college, changing from a superjock who screws every girl in sight to an acid-dropping Deadhead who faithfully attends every protest with his ubercommitted girlfriend. Supporting characters are the grandparents -- Sharon's parents, Helen and Herbert, who joyfully left New York for Los Angeles and cheered when Ethel Rosenberg was electrocuted, and Dennis's left-leaning parents, Sigmund and Tatti, who cling to their Lower East Side apartment and their Socialist political convictions.

This is the kind of book I normally would like. So why didn't I? First, "Something Red" shares a problem with a lot of literary novels: None of its main characters are remotely likeable. In fact, based on the inner monologues through which we get to know them, they're all rather vile. This isn't because any of them has done anything especially horrible or is even much more selfish or self-centered than the average person. There's just something repellent about their voices. These are the kind of characters at whom other authors have poked gentle (or not-so-gentle) fun (I'm thinking of Cyra McFadden's "The Serial" and David Lodge's academic satires). But there's no sense of satire, and precious little humor, in "Something Red." We see the characters floundering, but we (or at least I) don't like them enough to care.

Second, the sense of period is just off. It's hard to put my finger on how. But I remember those years well--I'm the same age as the character Ben--and, despite multiple, accurate references to the culture and politics of the period, I never believed this story was happening in the end of the '70s. Maybe it's the speech patterns--at one point, one college student tells another to "chill," an expression I never heard before the mid-'80s. Or maybe it's the music; there's lots of obscure punk and Grateful Dead, but the Cars and the Captain and Tenille--two bands that were inescapable at the time--are strangely absent. Maybe it's the food: Sharon's attitudes are a little too Alice Waters for 1980; and aren't cherries jubilee kind of Kennedy-era for 1979? The author was born in 1970, and she obviously did a tremendous amount of research for the book. But some point, the multitudinous period details began to seem excessive and heavy-handed. I found myself wishing that she'd just set the book a little later, in a time period that she herself remembered better, so she wouldn't have had to put so much obvious effort into painting a period picture.

In sum: There's a lot of story here, and some of it's pretty good. But ultimately, "Something Red" never quite comes together, either as a plot-driven novel or as a character study.

I loved Gilmore's debut novel, Golden Country, and have been anxiously awaiting the release of her second book. It did not disappoint! Something Red is a riveting read filled with complex characters and rich with history. Gilmore tells the story of each member of the Goldstein family through alternating chapters and paints a marvelous portrait of the family as a whole when they come together for Parents' Weekend at Brandeis, where Ben Goldstein attends college. Both funny and poignant with a surprise ending, this book is a winner!

I loved Jennifer Gilmore's first novel Golden Country for the complex characters and perfect blend of humor, history and a few tears here and there. With Something Red, Jennifer has done it again - she has crafted a highly readable novel with interesting, relatable characters and a storyline that draws you in and holds your attention through the unexpected conclusion. The novel is incredibly well-researched and effectively captures the paranoia and fear that occupied the American psyche at the height of the Cold War. Gilmore also blends in the culture of the late 70s/early 80s - the rise of punk rock, the Deadheads traveling to shows in their hippie buses, and of course, the ongoing American obsession with what to eat (or in some cases, not to eat). I highly recommend Something Red for readers looking for an intriguing, intelligent, and touching novel.

'Something Red' is a novel akin to spending a year in the Goldstein home. The novel starts in 1979 and goes to 1980. The reader gets to observe the family's ups and downs, its thrills and spills, its hopes and dreams and also watches them fall off the tracks from time to time.

The father of the household is Dennis, a child of the 1960's. He rallied, marched and sang, taking his children with him. He comes from a family of communists, who felt very strongly about their beliefs. His father, Sigmund, was a labor organizer and held true to his beliefs. He was an activist and remains an activist. Dennis worries that he can't live up to his father's expectations. Dennis is an administrator in the United States Department of Agriculture and tells himself that he is making change by working within the system. He travels back and forth to Moscow and we hear a lot about President Carter's grain embargo to Russia.

Sharon is Dennis' wife, a woman who tried to live up to what she thought the 60's stood for but fell far short. She was afraid to stick her neck out when push came to shove. She usually chose to take the easy way out. Now she is a caterer for people in high places in the Washington, D.C. area where they all live. Recently, she has become involved with an organization called LEAP which is very cult-like. Its goals are self-actualization but it all sounds fuzzy and nondescript. It's a group for followers and appears to have no leaders.

Sharon's father was a turncoat during the McCarthy era. He turned in his friends and colleagues so that he could continue making his grade 'B' westerns. Of late, he has turned to Judaism which puzzles Sharon. She thought about going to synagogue before she joined LEAP but LEAP seemed more personal and legitimate to her.

Dennis and Sharon have two children, Benji and Vanessa. Benji is the oldest and when the book opens, he is making his transition from high school to college. In high school, he is a jock and has a way with the girls. He chooses to go to Brandeis University, the alma mater of Abby Hoffman and Angela Davis. He wants to make a difference and carry on his grandfather Sigmund's activism. At Brandeis, he gives up sports and tries his hand in rallying, specifically for the boycott of the winter olympics that year in Moscow. Vanessa has a terrible eating disorder and feels like she is rotting from within. It appears to go under her parent's radar, though this seems very unrealistic. She is a very sick young woman who isolates herself from others and feels ugly, unlikable and fearful.

The book has no traditional beginning, middle and end. It is more like a meandering. The reader travels with this family for a year and observes. I never felt like I was a part of them. For some reason, the novel was unable to bring me close enough to the Goldsteins that I felt part of their family. The novel brought back a lot of memories about that time, including the horrific hostage crisis in Iraq that the United States was dealing with. Jennifer Gilmore has a wonderful sense of place. Her characters, however, seem a bit stilted and not quite real.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gilmore's first novel, "Golden Country". It was a wonderful multi-generational story, set on NYC's lower East Side and I was eager to read Gilmore's next novel and was pleased it was a Vine selection.

"Something Red" is also multi-generational Jewish family story, this time set mainly in Washington DC - with side plots set at Brandeis University and in New York City. The setting is 1980, that time of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Hostage crisis. And from those two events flow many other other things: the grain embargo by the US against the Soviets, Carter's decision to cancel American participation in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, as well as a reappraisal of American/Soviet diplomatic relations. Caught in this reappraisal is Dennis Goldstein, a high-ranking officer in the USDA with a job that often takes him to Moscow to participate in high-level trade talks. Dennis and his wife, Sharon,a caterer, have two children, the older, a boy about to begin college at Brandeis and a younger daughter, in high school. Vanessa, the daughter, is in the midst of typical teenage angst, centering on boys, food, rock music, and drugs. The two sets of grandparents - Dennis and Sharon's parents - represent the oldest generations. Dennis's parents live in New York and are old semi-revolutionaries who have differing views of their native Russia and the role of Communism in history. Sharon's parents - living the good life in Bel Air, had fled New York for a new life in the movie industry in Los Angeles. Oh, and the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trial and execution in the early 1950's is also a part of the story.

And that's the problem with Gilmore's book. There are just way too many characters and way too many plot lines. Gilmore would have done better to have concentrated on a novel with way fewer characters. She would have been able to do justice with her writing - which is very good - and written a better book.

The story of the Goldsteins, a Jewish American family in Washington D.C. in 1979 and '80 harkens back to Dennis' parents, Russian immigrants who led a double life, working in the entertainment industry in New York City and sending information back to Russia. Dennis works for the federal government in the agriculture department and is in the midst of the Carter administration's grain embargo. His wife, Sharon, caters political dinner parties. Their son, Benji, is off to college and high school daughter, Vanessa, is suffering from an identity crisis.

It's a heady mix that captures the drug and consciousness raising ethos of the era with a look back to the `50s when the Rosenbergs were executed for spying, a lesson Dennis' mother didn't seem to learn.

The characters are continually reminiscing about past events, not always the `50s, it might be Sharon's memories of her affair with a man she met in her behavioral cult or Vanessa thinking about her relationship with her boyfriend. Benji falls in love with Rebecca at Brandeis and becomes a Dead Head, smoking pot and eating acid like there's no tomorrow. He also leads a student demonstration against the Olympic boycott, which brings a little more history into the story.

The Jewish element of the story concerns the Russian roots of Jewish Americans from the period, who reminisce about the Rosenbergs while some of them continue to spy for their country, disrupting the lives of their children and grandchildren, who are beset by their own identity crises in contemporary America.

Jennifer Gilmore's ambitious second novel Something Red is an intriguing story of a complicated suburban Washington, D.C. family in 1979. The novel cleverly channels the past through it's descriptive analysis of the Goldstein family and the issues and problems of the era. The reader is immersed into the political atmosphere, historic events, products, music, food, social milieu and the emotional personal struggles that this family endures.

It's a story that captures your curiosity and heart. Something Red is a page turner that your book club will be grateful for and will leave you waiting for Ms. Gilmore's next book!

The four main characters: Dennis and Sharon, the parents, and Benji and Vanessa, the teen-age children, are unbelievably immature, tedious, self-centered, insubstantial and shallow. It is impossible to care about or have any respect for any of them. None of them develop. None of them have any guts. They are all flailing, looking for something to hang onto. That's appropriate for teenagers, but these kids never have a thought that isn't foolish.

The author says that she is indebted to Doctorow's Book of Daniel, but unlike that book, which pulses with life, this one is dead on the page. One reads, thinking it has to get better, but it doesn't.

As others have mentioned, the period never comes alive.

SPOILER: Dennis's parents are interesting, and have genuine beliefs, but play a minor role until near the end of the book. They are presented as caricatures, almost as foolish in their way as the main characters, so we are not prepared for the plot twist which involves them. Hints are scattered throughout the book, and in retrospect one can appreciate them, but the grandmother has been too minimal a character to take the weight of the denouement. The author herself seems uninterested in her denouement, spending only a few pages at the end on it and drawing out none of the implications. We only see the grandparents through the eyes of Dennis and his children. That might have worked, because it might have shown how little children understand their parents and how uninterested they are in seeing their parents as separate agents. One could take the book to be saying that everyone is wrapped up in his or her own solipsistic world, failing to perceive others, but this seems a little too big a thought.