Family and Other Accidents

January 9, 2006
Five years after their father dies of a heart attack, Jack and Connor Reed's mother dies of an aneurysm, and Jack, 25, returns to Cleveland to take care of 15-year-old Connor and to work in his late father's corporate law firm. This debut novel from Goldhagen, a celebrity reporter, spirals episodically through two-plus decades of Connor and Jack's fraught fraternity, showing the aftermath of loss in devastatingly efficient snapshots. Goldhagen cuts smoothly between the two men's perspectives, and widens out to include Jack's wife, Mona; Connor's wife, Laine; and, later, their children. Domestic disconnection and dissatisfaction are the rule, with marriages and pregnancies occurring more by chance than choice. Unsentimental and emotionally riveting, this is a portrait of the love between people who are not particularly good at loving. Even when Connor gets ill and tells Jack, "I tell everyone you're the only parent I ever had," their connection remains inarticulate.

February 1, 2006
This debut novel begins in the suburbs of Cleveland, OH, with orphaned brothers Jack and Connor Reed. The older and supposedly wiser Jack finds himself the caretaker of teenaged Connor, who suspects that Jack has put aside his own future and taken a job in their deceased father's law firm so that he can raise Connor in the family home. Connor knows Jack could do much better as a big-city lawyer and senses the resentment Jack must harbor for him. The two young men grown up and grow apart as Connor goes off to school and Jack asks Mona, the girlfriend he may or may not really love, to move in with him to help fill up the lonely house. As the years pass and girlfriends come and go, Jack and Connor remain tied together. Goldhagen does a wonderful job of describing the familial bond and all the ups and downs and oddities that we consider family. This would also make a good book group selection. Highly recommended." -Leann Restaino, Girard, OH"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2006
After his mother dies, 25-year-old Jack Reed returns to Cleveland to work at his late father's law firm and raise his brother, Connor, who is still in high school. Jack becomes a workaholic with a parade of women streaming in and out of his life, while lonely Connor feels he is a burden to his brother. Wary of their emotions, the two brothers avoid talking about the devastating events that have profoundly changed their lives, instead bickering over minutiae and suffering from an array of physical ailments. Connor eventually marries a leggy Harvard grad and immediately sets out to create the family he never had, while Jack becomes involved with a red-haired reporter whom he's not sure he loves. As the years pass and their partners change, as Jack becomes immensely wealthy and Connor gets sick, the brothers' bond becomes the central fact of their lives and one they finally acknowledge. In this immensely assured first novel, Goldhagen uses a wealth of skillful techniques to create an indelible portrait of the flawed but loving Reed brothers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)