Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

March 14, 2016
The 1970s and ’60s are reexamined in Ausubel’s second novel, which takes place largely in the American bicentennial year of 1976. Coming from moneyed backgrounds, married couple Edgar and Fern Keating react in a surprising fashion to their impending insolvency. Edgar, a soon-to-be-published novelist, goes sailing off to Bermuda with a woman he just slept with named Glory Jefferson. And Fern embarks on a cross-country road trip from Cambridge to Palm Springs with Mac, a giant bank guard she just met. Due to a mix-up, the Keatings’ three resilient children, nine-year-old Cricket and the 6-year-old twins, James and Will, are left home alone. Interspersed with this narrative are numerous flashbacks to the late ’60s, as we see Edgar and Fern meeting, courting, marrying, and having children as the world seemingly goes to hell around them. Ausubel (No One Is Here Except All of Us) offers an incisive look at these schismatic years in American history and how they affect this couple and their friends and family members, including Fern’s twin brother, Ben, who is drafted into the army along with Edgar. There is true wit in the author’s depiction of these tumultuous decades, and with characters this memorable, the pages almost turn themselves. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

What becomes of the wealthy when their wealth is suddenly gone? This is the question that interests Ausebel in her novel of a New England family in the 1960s and 1970s. Elisabeth Rodgers is a skilled narrator who is able to give some semblance of emotion to these spoiled, basically unlikable, characters. The story opens during relaxed days on Martha's Vineyard before the family's lack of money is discovered, and Rodgers's narration is similarly languid. In fact, the speed of the narration is slow enough that it occasionally becomes distracting. In the end, the poky pace and off-putting characters thwart a good listening experience. J.L.K. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine