Well intentioned. Are all men weak or angry? ( )

This book is so poignant and well-written. The plot is driving and the characters are flawed but still likeable and realistic. ( )

4 of 5 stars
A story of a family who is struggling with all sorts of issues: incarceration, eating disorders, physical abuse, death of a loved one, estrangement. This ambitious book tackles all of these topics, and more.
It is a moving account of forgiveness.
Great debut novel. ( )

Crises in an American Family

In Anissa Gray’s quite readable novel, we get to observe the dysfunction in an American family that for all appearances, prior to the start of the novel, had achieved the American dream. Althea and Proctor built a thriving business in their hometown, have young twin daughters, and had established a charity to help the community through hard times. Middle sister Viola has a Ph.D. in psychology, lives in Chicago, and is in a long-term relationship with another woman. Youngest of the sisters, until recently, had lived in New York and worked there as a designer before her divorce and death of her husband. She moved home to the family house in New River Junction, MI, to restore and improve it, and care for her ex-husband’s mother, Nai Nai. Joe, the sisters’ brother, lives nearby, where he is a minister, like his father had been.

When the novel opens, Althea and Proctor are in jail, awaiting sentencing for trading in food stamps, as well as pocketing charity contributions for their own good. Lillian finds herself caring for the daughters Kim and Baby Vi. What with their parents having bilked the town, people really in need of the money they gave, the girls find themselves treated as parish in school. While Baby Vi manages, Kim can’t and acts out in school and at home. Home now is with Lillian and Nai Nai. Lillian has asked Viola to return for the sentencing and to help.

However, Viola has her own problems. She has just blown up her relationship with Eva, and she’s bingeing and purging again, a condition she’s in treatment for and has been dealing with for years. Brother Joe, while not receiving much page time, always lurks in the background, memories of him and their father haunting all the sisters.

There’s a thread of abuse here, handed down from father to son. The father’s abuse drove Althea from home as a girl. The brother’s abuse has scarred Lillian, and to an extent Viola. From the time of the sentencing onward, what would appear to be the perfect family unravels in ways that force the sisters to address the traumas of their pasts, and those they currently face with the daughters of Althea and Proctor.

Gray has each of the sisters tell a part of the story in first person, with their own fill-in of the past, from chapter to chapter as she moves the story forward. Gray’s style, apart from a couple of warmup sentences from time to time, is effective in capturing the mood of the women, and more importantly, helping us understand their plight and raising your empathy for them. Because as readers move through this family saga of pain and joy, it will remind them of their own family dramas, perhaps not as wrought as this family’s, but there in the memory nonetheless. In this family, the Butler sisters and the next generation are all ravenous for peace, reconciliation, understanding, and love. And what they receive in the end isn’t perfect, nothing ever is, but it is a new start for each of them. ( )

Crises in an American Family

In Anissa Gray’s quite readable novel, we get to observe the dysfunction in an American family that for all appearances, prior to the start of the novel, had achieved the American dream. Althea and Proctor built a thriving business in their hometown, have young twin daughters, and had established a charity to help the community through hard times. Middle sister Viola has a Ph.D. in psychology, lives in Chicago, and is in a long-term relationship with another woman. Youngest of the sisters, until recently, had lived in New York and worked there as a designer before her divorce and death of her husband. She moved home to the family house in New River Junction, MI, to restore and improve it, and care for her ex-husband’s mother, Nai Nai. Joe, the sisters’ brother, lives nearby, where he is a minister, like his father had been.

When the novel opens, Althea and Proctor are in jail, awaiting sentencing for trading in food stamps, as well as pocketing charity contributions for their own good. Lillian finds herself caring for the daughters Kim and Baby Vi. What with their parents having bilked the town, people really in need of the money they gave, the girls find themselves treated as parish in school. While Baby Vi manages, Kim can’t and acts out in school and at home. Home now is with Lillian and Nai Nai. Lillian has asked Viola to return for the sentencing and to help.

However, Viola has her own problems. She has just blown up her relationship with Eva, and she’s bingeing and purging again, a condition she’s in treatment for and has been dealing with for years. Brother Joe, while not receiving much page time, always lurks in the background, memories of him and their father haunting all the sisters.

There’s a thread of abuse here, handed down from father to son. The father’s abuse drove Althea from home as a girl. The brother’s abuse has scarred Lillian, and to an extent Viola. From the time of the sentencing onward, what would appear to be the perfect family unravels in ways that force the sisters to address the traumas of their pasts, and those they currently face with the daughters of Althea and Proctor.

Gray has each of the sisters tell a part of the story in first person, with their own fill-in of the past, from chapter to chapter as she moves the story forward. Gray’s style, apart from a couple of warmup sentences from time to time, is effective in capturing the mood of the women, and more importantly, helping us understand their plight and raising your empathy for them. Because as readers move through this family saga of pain and joy, it will remind them of their own family dramas, perhaps not as wrought as this family’s, but there in the memory nonetheless. In this family, the Butler sisters and the next generation are all ravenous for peace, reconciliation, understanding, and love. And what they receive in the end isn’t perfect, nothing ever is, but it is a new start for each of them. ( )