Tell Me How This Ends Well

February 20, 2017
In Levinson’s (Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence) prescient second novel, which speaks to the current political moment, the year is 2022 and anti-Semitism is on the rise in America. Against this background, the three adult Jacobson children gather in L.A. for their annual family Passover celebration. Jacob, a playwright, flies in from Berlin with his German lover, Dietrich. Moses, a former reality TV star, uses the holiday as a pretext for making a comeback, with his wife and their large brood accompanied by a camera crew. And Edith, a divorced college ethics professor, comes west while fighting a sexual harassment suit. All three have a secret agenda to kill their abusive father, Julian, on behalf of their terminally ill mother, Roz, who only has a few months to live. As the siblings squabble over the best way to accomplish this, they dredge up old rivalries and spend endless time re-evaluating the successes, failures, and old loves that have made up their lives to this point, making a case for the Passover Seder being the Jewish equivalent of Thanksgiving when it comes to airing family grievances. The characters here are gargoylesque caricatures, and the jokes, knowing and hilarious, fly fast and furious in the black comic manner of Bruce Wagner, Howard Jacobson, and Bruce Jay Friedman. The story’s environment is claustrophobic, and in the book’s depiction of latter day anti-Semitism, Levinson leavens the humor with some chilling cautionary notes.

January 15, 2017
In a near future fraught with violent anti-Semitism, a family Passover focuses on patricide.Julian Jacobson is surely among the worst fathers in literary history, raising his children with vitriol, shame, and aggression, treating their mother no better. He tried to poison his adoring daughter by giving her food she was allergic to and relentlessly abused his sons in truly evil ways. Somehow the kids got through it, damaged as they may be. Each gets a chunk of this book devoted to his or her perspective; a penultimate chapter full of twists and revelations lets us into their mother's head. Moses, the oldest, is an actor with a reality show called The JacobSONS! about his life with wife Pandora and their triplets and twins, all boys. Edith is a promiscuous and unhappy professor of ethics at Emory, currently up on charges of sexual harassment. At 38, Jacob is the youngest and arguably the most alienated. He lives in Berlin with a German boyfriend named Dietrich and has documented the family nightmare in childhood journals he calls My Manifest of Meanness and later in his plays, the first of which shares the title of this novel. When the siblings learn their mother has lung cancer and has only a short time to live, they are certain their father is making her last months on Earth miserable and could even be intentionally hastening her death, since he's been after her money all along. Though they sort of hate each other, the three plan a family get-together at Moses' house in Los Angeles--nominally for Passover, but actually to kill their dad, which is going to be tricky since Seder at The JacobSONS! will be broadcast live. In Levinson's (Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence, 2013) dystopian 2022, the state of Israel is no more, having been carved up by Syria, Iran, and Lebanon after a war during which the United States stood aside. Now 4 million refugees have relocated to the U.S., provoking an intense xenophobic reaction and constant domestic terrorism. There's a lot to admire here, and a bit to be annoyed with, too--Levinson is a habitual overexplainer and loves nothing like a good back story. Imaginative, intelligent, cluttered, long on black humor, and just long.

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February 15, 2017

Set in Los Angeles in 2022, the latest from Levinson (Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence) follows the Jacobsen siblings as they gather for Passover and revisit the resentments of childhood. Narrated in turn by each sibling, chapters center on acerbic, ill-tempered patriarch Julian, who sees his offspring as ungrateful disappointments who don't live up to the Jacobsen name. After being forced to leave home because of his sexuality, struggling playwright Jacob describes the nomadic journey that led him to Berlin and to find solace in a relationship with Dietrich. Edith recounts her bitter divorce and languishing years in academia. Meanwhile, Mo tries to revive his acting career with a reality show, The JacobSONS, at the expense of his marriage. Matriarch Roz recalls her conversion to Judaism and not feeling Jewish enough for her in-laws. Levinson's vision of a near-distant future finds increasing anti-Semitism in America and water becoming both a scarcity and luxury as the climate changes. As the author cleverly writes, the Jacobsen siblings, who have been slowly drifting apart over the years, unite to save themselves from Julian's emotional abuse once and for all--until someone beats them to it. VERDICT With well-crafted characters, this unsettling saga will be appreciated by those who enjoy dark novels with wit and sass.--Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal

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