Housebreaking

March 1, 2015
Adultery, one of fiction's inexhaustible treasure-troves, is the main attraction in this second novel from Pope (In the Cherry Tree, 2003).Benjamin Mandelbaum has cheated twice and been caught twice. His wife, Judy, has a three-strikes policy, so when she discovers an incriminating hotel bill, Ben's out on his ear, even though this time he's innocent. He decamps to his childhood home in Wintonbury, a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut, where his widower father lives alone. Whaddaya know, his near neighbor is Audrey Martin, someone he'd lusted after in private school. Both are now in their mid-40s; Audrey's a housewife married to a workaholic partner in a law firm, Andrew, and mother of a teenager, Emily. Their attraction is immediate, and soon, Ben and Audrey are going at it like rabbits, even using a Starbucks bathroom for their coupling. Audrey needs the release; she hasn't had sex with her husband, or anybody else, since that terrible day 18 months earlier when their son, Daniel, died after a car crash. Andrew, too, needs some release, and the focus moves to his growing fascination with an associate, Johnny Sampson, a supercilious ambassador's son and carefree bisexual. Andrew's new tack is not entirely convincing as tennis games lead to blow jobs. The family portrait enlarges to include Emily, who has become wildly promiscuous since losing her brother; an experienced shoplifter, she teams up with the neighborhood badass to break into houses, including Ben's. Pope describes her teen angst compellingly, but it's an awkward fit with the grown-ups' disordered lives, and the psychological complexities of adultery are sacrificed to strenuous action as Andrew's situation turns dire and Emily's transgressions collide with Ben and Audrey's trysts. Well-grounded but a little too busy for its own good.

Starred review from May 15, 2015

Broken marriages and family tragedy have dramatically scarred the characters in this contemporary novel about life in suburbia by Pope (In the Cherry Tree). Benjamin Mandelbaum has just moved in with his widowed father, as his wife is justly suing him for divorce on grounds of adultery. A few doors away, the Martin family has purchased and renovated an old farmhouse. Andrew, Audrey, and daughter Emily are suffering a tragic loss, and their only way of coping is through risky behavior such as drug abuse and having lots of sex with some dangerous people. Emily, attracted to the worst boys in school, is utterly devastated when she sees photos of herself being gang raped; her father gets entangled in a homosexual tryst at work; and Audrey becomes the sex partner of Benjamin, who lusted after her during high school. Their intimacy, however, pushes Emily over the edge. VERDICT This work will captivate and immerse readers in a cyclone of emotion that could leave them short of breath by the last page. Not for the faint of heart, this realistic novel is an excellent portrait of flawed people, tragic circumstances, and the behavior that consumes them.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2015
In this compassionate, utterly engrossing novel of suburban dysfunction, unhappy middle-aged adults go off the rails, with tragic consequences. Benjamin Mandelbaum's wife kicks him out of the house, finally fed up with his constant lying and suspected infidelity. He moves back into his childhood home with his widowed father and is surprised to learn that, just up the street, the beautiful, unattainable girl of his high-school days has just moved in, along with her corporate-attorney husband and troubled daughter. Audrey, harboring a terrible secret and looking for escape, is moved by Ben's admission of his high-school crush, and the two begin a passionate affair. But their mutual compulsion to escape carries some serious repercussions, ones they don't see until it's almost too late. Told in two parts, one from Ben's point of view, the other given over to Audrey, her husband, and her daughter, in turn, this insightful novel about flawed people and their frequent quests for redemption makes some trenchant points about how easily people can lose sight of what's most important.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)