St. Ivo

January 6, 2020
Hershon’s somber, murky fifth novel (after The Dual Inheritance) gradually reveals the unhappy secrets between floundering filmmaker Sarah and her adult daughter, Leda. Sarah, who hasn’t made a film for years, has recently, and uncertainly, reunited with her husband, Matthew, after a two-year separation. The novel follows the couple over the course of a weekend spent in upstate New York with their friends and fellow artists Kiki and Arman, who have just had a baby. Hershon slowly drags in clues to the source of Sarah’s suffering, and the circumstances surrounding her and Matthew’s estrangement from Leda, which Sarah tries to work through in a screenplay despite Matthew’s objections. Heading into the weekend, Sarah behaves in increasingly risky ways and gives her name and phone number to a “grandfatherly” Czech man she meets on the subway. Upstate, she tempts danger in a swimsuit-clad encounter with Kiki and Arman’s gruff neighbor in the woods, stimulated by the sense that the man could overpower her after he touches the fringe of her suit. While Leda’s story of heroin addiction and betrayal is rather predictable, Sarah’s opaque emotional backdrop receives welcome bursts of illumination with brief, dialogue-driven cinematic scenes. Hershon explores with moving simplicity the complexities friendships and a marriage that has frayed but not yet died.

February 1, 2020
A woman whose life has been knocked off balance by her daughter's absence struggles to regain her equilibrium. At first glance, Sarah would seem to have it all: a devoted husband, a Brooklyn brownstone, money, good looks (attracting attention even in her late 40s), privilege, the dregs of a successful career as a filmmaker, an agent waiting to support her next project. However, as Hershon's novel unspools over the course of a long weekend, in which Sarah and her husband, Matthew, are violently mugged in Prospect Park and then travel upstate to reconnect with old friends--a couple named Kiki and Arman--we learn that Sarah's life is far from perfect. Sarah and Matthew's troubled 24-year-old daughter, Leda, has vanished from their lives; the stress caused by her yearslong absence has nearly cost Sarah her marriage (she and Matthew have reconciled after a two-year separation) and her career (she can't write about Leda, yet neither can she write about anything else). Kiki and Arman, too, have their problems as well as a new baby daughter who stirs memories--both pleasant and painful--for Sarah. In clear, compassionate prose, Hershon (A Dual Inheritance, 2013, etc.) conjures characters readers may initially assume they know and then gently and gradually subverts those assumptions, revealing the emotions and difficulties with which these nuanced characters are grappling. Ultimately the author offers notes of hope--that the secrets and sadnesses, disappointments and distress that can damage relationships, derail pursuits, and erode lives when they are held inside and in isolation can resolve when shared; that sometimes finding a way back to one another is the best way to find a way forward. This graceful story offers insights into family, friendship, and finding a way to move on after a loss.

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March 1, 2020
With a building sense of foreboding and suspense, Hershon (A Dual Inheritance, 2013) traces the emotions of Sarah, a feature filmmaker and mother. Bit by bit we learn that Sarah and her husband, Matthew, who became parents in their early twenties and are now in their late forties, have experienced a devastating loss. Leda, their only child, has checked out of their lives, choosing a harrowing path. Sarah can't let go. Her life and career on hold and her marriage up in the air, Sarah wrestles with grief, guilt, the placing of blame, anger, shame, and hopelessness. Over four late-summer days in Brooklyn and upstate New York, as she encounters strangers and a long-out-of-touch couple with a newborn, Sarah is haunted by past and last memories of her daughter. Over the following months, she rebuilds her connection with these old friends, seeks out one of the strangers, and deepens her relationship with Matthew. The rhythms of her days change to include less loss, more life. Parents will shiver at Hershon's moving story of fierce but helpless parental love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)