From Publishers Weekly
With earnest lyricism and emotional accuracy, the nine linked stories of Chenoweth's debut collection graph the evolution of the Goodpasture family. The dramatis personae introduced by the opening story recur: the outcast, troublemaking Stuart; his brittle mother, Carol, shattered when her husband deserts her for another woman; the virile bully, Uncle Jack; and Granelle, the doddering grandmother. From the chrysalis of "Powerman," which takes place in 1968 at the annual family retreat in muggy, graveyard-rich Beersheba Springs, Tenn., emerges a chain of events that ends when the near-30-year-old Stuart decides that "Here was where [he] would begin." The tales' geographical range?Martha's Vineyard, Jacksonville, Princeton, and Washington, D.C.?operates as a metaphor for the scope of the characters' emotional trials. Shocking revelations about divorce, paternity, sex and family form the substratum of Stuart's coming of age, while glimpses into the lives of his siblings, Jay and Brian, round out the family's difficult relationships. While these strung-together short stories sometimes feel like an undernourished novel, the intensity of the language and the grace of the narrative arc should earn this new writer praise.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This wonderfully sardonic and incisive novel in nine short stories explores the dysfunctional Goodpasture family: Stuart Sr. and Carol, and their children Moriah, Stuart Jr., Brian, and Jay, plus assorted grandparents, aunts and uncles. It is clear from the beginning that Stuart Sr. and Carol's marriage is crumbling; in later stories we read of their divorce and the effect this has had on the others, particularly Stuart Jr., who, after college graduation, spends a summer on Martha's Vineyard followed by a number of years in New York trying to make it as an actor. When he returns for his tenth college reunion, he discovers that his charm can no longer carry him to the places he expected it would. In a later story, he doubts his own paternity when his mother's past secrets are dubiously exposed. Other stories reveal his mother's fanciful past and his siblings' attempts to build their own lives and their disillusionment with their estranged father, whose new, born-again life keeps them all on edge. Frank Caso
