Apologize, Apologize!

April 27, 2009
Jeff Woodman creates an excellent portrayal of a painfully self-conscious young man trapped in a charismatic but violently dysfunctional family sequestered with their dozen dogs in a house on Martha's Vineyard. He renders the various members of the family—the wealthy and obnoxious grandfather, the ever-drunk, ever-vicious father and uncle, the nutty Marxist mother—with artistry and enthusiasm. Any weakness in this performance is due to the novel's failings: the characters are stereotypes, the style overburdened with similes and digressive anecdotes satirizing contemporary literature. Despite Woodman's considerable skill and best efforts, this listening disappoints. A Twelve hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 10).

November 10, 2008
Collie Flanagan’s life is part Grey Gardens
and part The Royal Tenenbaums
in this beautifully written if unwieldy dramedy debut. Raised on Martha’s Vineyard, Collie is the dull link in his flamboyant family: his adulterous, alcoholic father and cruelly pugnacious mother maintain a miserable relationship that overshadows even the overblown personalities of his pigeon-racing uncle and his prep-school failure brother. As storms of irresponsibility rage, Collie lives in quiet, stable success until a one-two punch of family tragedy leaves him reeling. Collie’s relationship with his media magnate grandfather becomes contentious as Collie spins out of control and tries wildly different ways to make restitution and become a man. Kelly is a gifted writer (Collie’s mother attacks with a “verbal pitchfork. Before the night was over, just about everyone in the place had sprung leaks, blood and champagne spurting from all those glamorous human fountains”), but her chops as a novelist aren’t as refined: Collie is as pallid as the other characters are unbelievable, and though the crazed drama keeps the story moving, it’s often incredible. Though hampered by these weaknesses, Collie’s quest is worth reading for the elegant prose alone.

September 1, 2008
Listen up, readers. Neophyte Canadian novelist Kelly wants you to meet the Flanagans, a quasifunctional family that might give Jonathan Franzen pause. In a sprawling home on Martha's Vineyard, Anais and Charlie Flanaganshe a blue-blooded liberal who aims to save the world but has let her own family founder and he a "lovable" drunk and womanizerexist only to torment their benefactor, her filthy-rich father, newspaper scion Peregrine Lowell. Two sons are born to the Flanagans in rapid succession, but, inexplicably, Anais rejects her eldest, narrator Collie, passionately favoring the younger, wilder Bingo. This uneven treatment breeds a love/hate relationship between the brothers, a perpetual game of one-upmanship resulting in a series of traumatic events that leave Collie seeking forgiveness just for being alive. His search for redemption takes him from a convent in El Salvador to medical school, financed by his disapproving grandfather. While Kelly is a clever, witty wordsmith with a penchant for apt if over-the-top metaphors that are laugh-out-loud funny, she only skims the surface of her characters, leaving readers to wonder why they dislike one another so. Purchase for larger libraries that showcase new authors.Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2008
First-time novelist Kelly displays an unrelenting quirkiness that begs comparison with Daniel Wallace and John Irving, both of whom have large contingents ofrabid fans. Even the dogs and pigeons have personality to spare in this meandering story of the fantastic Flanagans, a well-to-do family living on Marthas Vineyard. Collie (named after his parents favorite breed of dog) is forever caught in the rivalry between his stern media-mogul grandfather and his irascibleparents. With a radical-activist mother and a philandering, alcoholic father, its not hard to see why Collie gravitates toward the structure and traditional ambitions of his grandfather. But a terrible tragedy sends Collie intoendless rounds of carousing before he decides toattend medical school and become a doctor.This slightly surreal noveloffersmany colorful aphorismsWhenever youre frightened bolster yourself with a French word or two. The effects are positively galvanizingandsome loosely structured subplots concerning homing pigeons, sailing, and El Salvador. Whimsical in tone but choppy in effect, Apologize, Apologize!will appeal to lovers of the offbeat.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)