Our Frail Blood

December 10, 2012
Malae’s ambitious second novel follows the rending of the Felice family over half a century as its members spiral apart from each other ideologically, physically, and emotionally. When Richmond and his younger sister, Mary Anna, put their mother into hospice care, their eldest brother Anthony, a right-wing extremist, decries the decision and pits himself against them. Meanwhile, Murron, the abandoned 38-year-old daughter of estranged brother Lazarus, uneasily enters the fray by visiting the grandmother she’s never known. After clashes with the overbearing Felices, Murron reluctantly agrees to help Anthony and his younger brother Johnny find her missing father, so that his support might be enlisted in the sibling rivalry. As Murron gets drawn deeper into the raw anger of the Felice clan, her wounds reopen, leading her to rethink the distance she keeps from her own family. But the secrets of the Felice family prove particularly dark and far-reaching, and Murron’s vulnerabilities impede her efforts to keep herself—and her son—unhurt. While the novel’s heart is true, the bluster and venom of the Felice siblings make it difficult to stick around for when Malae (What We Are) is at his best: depicting the throbbing pain and joy of an American family. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM.

January 1, 2013
The turbulent story of the Felice family, spanning over a half century. Maria, the family's matriarch, lies in an Elysium Fields Hospice bed while one roommate after another dies and is replaced. Why won't she die? To put it another way, why is she even in a hospice? Malae spins a yarn about a family in the process of forgetting about her well before she is dead and about the few people who still care about her. From chapter to chapter, the tale bounces back and forth from the 1950s through the first decade of this century, ultimately revealing a dark but unsurprising secret. Most readers, it would seem, hope that a novel gives them someone to root for. Don't look for much of that here--Maria is sympathetic but necessarily passive, and the bulimic Murron is OK if you don't expect too much from her, although she alone in the story does her best. But Maria's five children are certainly nothing to cheer about. In daughter Mary Anna's eyes, the worst thing about the Vietnam War was that her brother Johnny survived it. No doubt, Malae tells a strong if depressing story, painting scenes in vivid and sometimes microscopic detail. But he is prolix and a tad pretentious, often meandering through the characters' thoughts using convoluted sentences before finally making his point. At the same time, the book probes many of the weaknesses (and few of the strengths) of family dynamics. It is easy to imagine damaged families like the Felices, and America doubtless has thousands of families whose problems are at least as bad. Maybe that is a redeeming feature of this book: that it speaks to the weaknesses--our frail blood--that so many of us share. While not uplifting, this is a thoughtful work that will appeal to readers who enjoy literary fiction.

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March 1, 2013

Malae's hard-bitten prose depicts the sprawling saga of the thoroughly unlikable Felice family. Children of an Italian immigrant couple who settled in 20th-century northern California, these four sons and one daughter claim pride in their heritage but flee their responsibilities now that their mother is confined to a hospice. Anthony is a politically conservative bigot, Richmond toyed with becoming a poet or a priest but found his true calling on Wall Street, Johnny is an alcoholic former porn star, Mary Anna is openly lesbian and, curiously, a successful professional clown. Lazarus is a deadbeat dad and father of Murron, herself a single mother employed as a literary critic. As a child born out of wedlock, Murron is spurned by the Felices but serves as the novel's moral compass when she becomes the main caregiver of the family matriarch. The bitter ruminations of these self-absorbed characters interlink with the grim descriptions of suburban Northern California to paint a bleak picture of how both this family and America at large have lost their way. VERDICT This new novel from Malae (What We Are) will be of interest to readers of realistic literary fiction.--Reba Leiding, James Madison Univ. Lib., VA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2013
Malae tackles the tribulations of an American family in crisis in his newest novel. An Italian-American clan of five siblings, the Felices are plunged into a feud when their aging mother, Mary, must be placed in hospice care. Out of the family ether emerges Murron, the illegitimate child of black-sheep brother Lazarus. She hopes to bring the family back together and find her place within it through the process. Like Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections (2001), Malae's story wrestles with the individual problems of each family member and places them in stark relief to one another. From international adoption to the AIDS crisis, no family member is immune to the emotional pain that living in a complex world brings. For readers who enjoy richly textured family sagas, this is a must-read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)