Eden

July 31, 2017
In her uneven debut, Blasberg traces the women of one family across decades of summers spent in the family’s ancestral house in Long Harbor, R.I. When financial hardship hits the Meister family, it appears they will have to sell their longtime summer home. But before it’s put up for sale, matriarch Becca decides to host a large party to commemorate the family’s last season there. Told from various points of view and heavily dependent on flashbacks, the novel reaches back to the 1920s to tell the story of Becca’s mother, Sadie, as well as digging into Becca’s own youth when she made the heart-wrenching decision to place a child for adoption. Although the multiple generations add depth to Blasberg’s ruminations on motherhood, the narrative’s many twists and turns are marred by awkward dialogue. The decision for Becca to reveal her secret child is inspired by her granddaughter, Sarah, who has an unplanned pregnancy and decides to keep the baby. Throughout the many flashbacks and long scenes of dialogue, the enchanting beach home—called Eden—keeps the novel centered. As the final party approaches, the dispute over the future of Eden becomes complicated by the secrets Becca has kept, resulting in an explosive get-together. Blasberg’s novel is notable for its ambition, but it overreaches. Readers will be let down by a confusing plot, a cast of characters whose voices sound too similar, and a web of complicated relationships.

March 1, 2017
Eden, a vacation retreat in Long Harbor, Rhode Island, has always been part of Becca's life, but now she is about to lose it forever. Her father built the home before the stock-market crash of 1929. The family always spent summers there, the slower pace a welcome break from the workaday routine during the rest of the year. For Becca and her kin, the home is imbued with memories of its previous owners, the assignment of the choicest rooms a bone of contention among different relatives that dates back years. Before she can face up to life without Eden, however, she must tell her family a secret that she kept for 50 years. The novel explores the lives of Becca and her closest relations: her once-vibrant mother, who faded to a shade of her former self; her bitter daughter, trapped in a miserable marriage; and her granddaughter, pregnant at 29 with a married man's child. The choices and constraints faced by each woman echo through the generations, poignantly showing how paradise can remain out of reach. A stirring historical novel perfect for women's-fiction fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)