Home Safe

Mom. Mom! MOM!! is what Helen Ames's grown daughter, Tessa, habitually says when she gets irritated with her mother--which is often. In Elizabeth Berg's reading of her latest novel, about a woman recently widowed, Tessa's exclamation comes out sounding loud and childish--and completely authentic. You can hear in Berg's voice how often she must have heard those exact words in that exact intonation in her imagination as she wrote her novel. But those are among the few authentic moments in Berg's monochromatic reading. The story is moderately appealing, but Berg's narration doesn't do it justice. It just isn't the full-voiced, dramatic, authoritative performance a more experienced professional could have delivered. N.G. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

March 2, 2009
Love, work and the absence of both figure prominently in Berg’s latest, a rumination on loss and replenishment. Since novelist Helen’s husband, Dan, died a year ago, she’s been unable to write, and though her publisher and agent aren’t worried, she is, particularly after a disastrous performance at a public speaking engagement leaves her wondering if her writing career will be another permanent loss. Meanwhile, daughter Tessa is getting impatient as Helen smothers her with awkward motherly affection. Tessa longs for distance and some independence, but Helen is unable to run her suburban Chicago home without continually calling on Tessa to perform the handyman chores that once belonged to Dan. And then Helen discovers Dan had withdrawn a huge chunk of their retirement money, and Helen’s quest to find out what happened turns into a journey of self-discovery and hard-won healing. Berg gracefully renders, in tragic and comic detail, the notions that every life—however blessed—has its share of awful loss, and that even crushed, defeated hearts can be revived.