The Six Granddaughters of Cecil Slaughter

July 30, 2012
Hahn’s overstuffed debut novel concerns itself with the descendants of Hungarian émigré Cecil Slaughter, particularly Cecil’s eponymous granddaughters. But the title is misleading: one granddaughter, Celeste, died as an infant and barely figures in the family’s history; another, Ceci, is also long dead, though she narrates from beyond the grave. The living Slaughter cousins—the famous poet, Cecilia; the embittered playwright, Cecily; the proudly promiscuous Celine; and the shy Celie—must contend with the sorrows of their family legacy (Cecilia’s mother is a Holocaust survivor; Celine’s father is a lecher; the cousins’ grandmother, Idyth, suffered a nervous breakdown following her husband’s death) while negotiating the rivalries and disappointments of their relationships. When a brutal encounter leaves Cecilia damaged, past, present, and future collide with predictable results. Hahn, a poet, strives for insight—Ceci is fond of referencing the teachings of Lao Tzu—but the novel, interspersed with poems ostensibly written by Cecilia, mostly achieves an affected tone. Its piling of tragedy upon tragedy is overwhelming, and the preponderance of Slaughter granddaughters makes it difficult to care about any of them.

August 1, 2012

Multi-awardwinning poet and playwright Hahn debuts an original, complex novel where poetry and prose meet in complete repose. It's narrated by the deceased Ceci Slaughter, a self-described "plain of plainest" whose path in the afterlife is just shy of stalking his holiness, Lao Tzu, whose philosophical teachings she wishes to embrace. Offering a powerful testimony of her childhood in the eminent Slaughter family, Ceci, a scholar from Stanford, foils her mother, Rose, a materialistic prima donna, and her poetically gifted but deeply troubled cousin, Cecilia, who is at the vortex of ongoing family tension. Hahn's poetry serves as a prelude to each chapter, adding nuance to the story's reading and literary merit. An anticipated climax involving the mentally distressed poet Cecilia and a mysterious character named Herr M keeps the pages turning. VERDICT Here is a novel with precision--a psychological and poetic drama with a convincing narrative that dispels the human fear of death through a distinct voice of "peaceful indifference." Recommended for readers excited about writing that plays successfully with literary conventions.--Annalisa Pesek, Library Journal

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2012
Cecil Slaughter must have been an extraordinary man, for all six of his granddaughters are named after him. But Cecil's presumed greatness is instead a protective myth concocted by his immigrant Jewish Hungarian family as it struggles to move beyond the horrors that delivered it to Chicago. The five surviving granddaughters (Celeste died in infancy) are wildly different in temperament yet inextricably bound together as they cope with far-reaching soul damage. We learn their stories from Ceci, who, rather than emulating her imperial mother in beauty and pettiness, earned a PhD in English, only to die at age 32. She now watches her cousins run amok from a subterranean, Wonderlandesque afterlife. Plain, shy Celie works in an upscale clothing shop. Cheerfully vulgar Celine has affairs. Cecily is an angry, floundering playwright. Poet Cecilia, whose mother is an Auschwitz survivor and whose literary success has become a liability, propels this stealthy, ravishing, neurosis-laced family saga punctuated by spearing poems and a murder. In her psychologically astute, darkly funny, and suspenseful first novel, best-selling poet, playwright, and Guggenheim fellow Hahn (The Scarlet Ibis, 2007; The Note She Left, 2008) combines the absurd with the tragic in a unique take on the malignant legacy of genocide and the transcendent effort to channel pain into art.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)