Family History

Starred review from February 3, 2003
It's every parent's nightmare: you do your best, yet your child goes bad. With candor and tenderness, Shapiro (Playing with Fire) explores how a beloved, well-brought-up child can destroy a family. Rachel and Ned Jensen moved from a bohemian life in Greenwich Village to the Massachusetts town where Ned grew up when Rachel found herself pregnant with Kate. She hoped for a stellar career in art restoration; Ned was sure he'd find inspiration for his paintings in tiny Hawthorne. By the time Kate is a teenager, neither has occurred, but they're a happy family: Ned teaches at the Hawthorne Academy, Rachel works part-time; Kate is a beautiful, cheerful, popular 13-year-old. Then Rachel has another baby, Joshua, at age 39. Jealousy of her new brother, or some darker disturbance, turns Kate's ordinary teenage mood swings and shoplifting escapades into more venomous rebellion. After an accident occurs when Josh is in Kate's care, she spirals out of control, and makes wild accusations that do terrible damage to the Jensens' lives. The gripping narrative has the deeply felt emotional fidelity of a true story; it's a book some readers will finish in one sitting. The physicality of Rachel's maternal love—the need of a mother to touch her child, to feel it breathe—is almost palpable. Shapiro writes luminously about marital love and contented domestic routines, and with brutal insight about the corrosive misery of guilt and shame. Crafted with assurance, this novel holds a mirror to contemporary life. 75,000 first printing; BOMC and Literary Guild alternates; 5-city author tour.