Schroder: A Novel

Gaige, Amity. Schroder: A Novel. New York: Twelve. 2013. Print

First Sentences:

What follows is a record of where Meadow and I have been since our disappearance.

My lawyer says I should tell the whole story. Where we went, what we did, who we met, etc. As you know, Laura, I'm not a reticent person. I'm talkative -- you could even say chatty -- for a man. But I haven't spoken a word for days. It's a vow I've taken. My mouth tastes old and damp, like a cave.

Description:

Amity Gaige's Schroder: A Novel is a rare book: compelling and unsettling, loving and surprising all at the same time. It is the story of one father's overwhelming love for his daughter, his confusion about the break-up of his marriage, and his uncertainty about his own life and identity.

Beautifully and passionately written, Schroder is the journal written by Eric Kennedy from his jail cell detailing the reasons for his spontaneous abduction of his daughter and their activities during those weeks. While seemingly a horrifying premise, Eric tells his story calmly and rationally, adding bits of his own history. He reflects on his childhood flight from East Germany with his father to the United States, his fabrication of a new last name and life history to get into a boys' camp, and his love for his wife, Laura, and their six-year-old daughter Meadow. 

But Eric also records his insecurities with his own parenthood, with relationships, and his private research project that seems to have neither purpose nor end. And he writes of Laura's frustration and ongoing conflict with him about his parenting shortcomings and their eventual separation, divorce and limited visitation arrangements. Without his daughter and his wife, his life starts to go downhill. 

There was the underlying problem of days. Between every allotted weekend visitation sprawled the weeks themselves. Worm-eaten, heartsick, exaggerated days bookended by conciliatory Saturdays and Sundays in her presence. Then, every other weekend without her. Grief made those weekends drag. 

During one visit with Meadow, he suddenly decides they need a road trip and off they go, with no real plan or explanation given to his ex-wife and Meadow's mother, Laura. The journey seems slightly irregular even to Eric, but he relishes the opportunity to spend time with his daughter. Meadow is excited at first, then a bit puzzled about the whole experience. But she loves her father and together they move from location to location, quietly under the radar, searching for ... what?

Soon, however, their trip grows into something else: an reckless, endless flight away from his former life. Turning back and delivering Meadow to her mother is inevitable Eric knows, but as the days and miles pile up, return becomes not a simple solution. Such an action will be full with repercussions and probably signaling the end to his life with Meadow.

I realized that my situation was irreparable. I was like dead man, appealing my death. It made me too sad, to realize how late and how insufficient such an appeal would be.

Over the days his relationship with Meadow changes, both for better and worse. He has sole responsibility for the safety, care, and feeding of a six-year-old, and his rises to that occasion as often as he acts completely irresponsibility towards her. He becomes more and more conflicted.

I had forgotten about the vortex that gets created when you love a kid. Because I wanted to be with my daughter more than anything, and yet I also wanted to be free of that desire. I wanted to be free of that desire because I knew being with her had an end.

He sometimes ponders about what ex-wife Laura is doing, considers her fears for her daughter, and her probable confusion as to Eric's intentions. He is sure she is angry and does not understand her actions that caused this situation. Although he still loves Laura and secretly hopes for a reconciliation and more happy years together in the future, in his more calm moments knows it will never be. 

But he cannot give up on the road trip with Meadow, his final chance to be with her on an extended basis, no matter the cost 

I knew it was cruel not to call you, to tell you that Meadow was all right, that is wasn't as bad as you were thinking. But I was used to your absence, and we were both used to cruelty by then, I mean the casual cruelty of people dismantling their life together.

Eric is never violent or even mean to Meadow, showing her only loving devotion as her father. She occasionally questions their adventure and the new people and places they encounter, but her father is there, she has plenty of junk food to eat and no school, so life seems pretty good to her.

This is a strongly written story about an intelligent, troubled, and wounded man who seizes on an opportunity and rides it to whatever conclusion comes, right or wrong. His desire to spend time with his daughter consumes him. As he writes this detailed journal which "could someday help him in court," we readers slowly enter his mind and life, seeing their influences that lead to this adventure. 

His sadness, passion, insecurity, intelligence, and dedication to having a life with Meadow drive him constantly. It is absolutely riveting to follow his story and his wild attempts to find and then preserve love and relationships:

Because in the end, the great warring forces of our existence are not life versus death...but rather love versus time. In the majority, love does not survive time's passage. But sometimes it does. It must, sometimes.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl

The deterioration of a marriage to the point where the husband is accused of killing his wife who has disappeared. But is that the whole story? (previously reviewed here)

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

Tinti, Hannah. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. New York: Random House. 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

When Loo was twelve years old her father taught her how to shoot a gun. 

He had a full case of them in his room, others hidden in boxes around the house.

Description:

Hannah Tinti's thriller, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, is an unusually quiet yet gripping thriller of a tale. Loo Hawley is a twelve-year-old girl growing up while traveling on the road with her secretive father, Steven, driving from anonymous place to anonymous place, living in hotel after hotel. Loo is naturally curious about her father's past, particularly about his relationship with her dead mother, Lily, whom he rarely mentions. 

When Loo and Hawley finally settle in her mother's hometown, Loo slowly begins to gather clues about her parents' life together. She is surprised to learn that their history is not all peaches and cream ... starting with stories about the twelve scars on Hawley's body, all from bullet wounds. 

Flipping seamlessly between their current life in Olympus, Massachusetts, and various criminal episodes from Samuel's past, author Tinti cleverly unfolds the stories behind the people that father and daughter encounter on their travels as well as the adventures that led to each of Samuel's wounds. And there are some doozies.

Meanwhile Loo is coming of age herself, struggling to form friendships with schoolmates, developing her first relationship with another young man, and seeking to understand who she is and what her mother meant to her and Hawley. 

Hawley proves himself a man of extremes: a loving father trying to protect his daughter, but one who owns and uses many guns in criminal activities. At each hotel, he tenderly erects on the bathroom shelf a collection of his deceased wife's belongings (shampoo, grocery list, photos, lipstick, toothbrush, cans of pineapple), yet never discusses her with Loo. He's a man longing to put down roots, yet takes to the road on any hint of inquiry into his life. 

I won't spoil the surprises about the characters or actions Loo and Hawley encounter, but suffice to say Twelve Lives is an engrossing, original tale of genuinely fascinating, honest, and unexpectedly sympathetic people who will pull you into a world of secrets, crime, love, protection, and adventure and won't let go. 

I was hooked by Tinti's writing and creative imagination for plot and sympathetic characters who try so hard to understand and make their world livable and safe for their friends and family despite the sadness and challenges faced during their travels. A keeper of a book for sure.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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About The First Sentence Reader blog
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Amity, Gaige. Schroder: A Novel

Eric Schroder on a whim picks up his daughter, Meadow, from her mother's house to take her for a drive. What starts out as an opportunity for Schroder to spend time with his daughter turns into a rambling roadtrip with unknown consequences for father and daughter alike, both good and bad. (previously reviewed here)

LIttle Fires Everywhere

Ng, Celeste. Little Fires Everywhere. New York: Penguin 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children,had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

Description:

Celeste Ng can really write as evidenced by Everything I Never Told You, her gripping debut novel of family relationships, hidden lives, sadness, and passion. Her newest novel, Little Fires Everywhere, only adds to her reputation for understanding human nature and the dynamics behind interesting characters facing difficult decisions that have far-ranging implications.

It is a book that simply absorbs you into the quiet lives of the upper middle class community of Shaker Heights. 

All up and down the street the houses looked like any others -- but inside them were people who might be happy, or taking refuge, or steeling themselves to go out into the world, searching for something better. So many lives she would never know about, unfolding behind those doors.

The story is off and running with an opening scene that brings the Richardson family and residents of the neighborhood out of their homes to watch a fire completely engulf the home of Bill and Elena Richardson and their four children, Trip, Lexi, Moody, and Izzy. The family and neighbors seem to calmly accept that the fire was set by the angry, 14-year-old Izzy, but she is nowhere to be found.

Ng then recounts the backstory leading up to the fire, beginning with the mysterious Mia Warren, a photographer/artist, and her teenage daughter, Pearl, who rent a small house from the Richardsons. Mia and Pearl lead lives of vagabonds, traveling from city to city, stopping only when Mia feels inspiration for a new photographic image. In each city Mia finds employment that pays for rent and food, yet gives her time to work nights on her art. When a project is complete (six months or less), her photos are sent to a gallery in New York, and Mia and Pearl drive off, looking for new inspiration in another town. 

But Mia has recently promised Pearl that Shaker Heights will be where they will settle permanently. Mia is engrossed in a new project, so Pearl if free to make friends with the wealthy Richardson family. With them she experiences a new world of luxury and ease. But Pearl also faces conflicting passions and life decisions with the Richardson teens and parents.

All her life, she had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches....Better to control that spark and pass it carefully from one generation to the next, like an Olympic torch. ....Carefully controlled. Domesticated. Happy in captivity. The key...was to avoid conflagration.

Then we meet Shaker Heights residents Mark and Linda McCullough, a couple who adopt a child abandoned on the steps of a local firehouse. They have the wealth and love to offer a perfect home for the child. But issues arise when the birth mother, Bebe, turns up with a change of heart concerning the baby.

Mia becomes the touchstone for individuals wishing to share secrets, get advice, or just find a quiet solace from looming decisions. But little is known about Mia's past, a situation that bothers Elena Richardson enough to poke around into Mia's early life and turn over stones regarding some of the decisions Mia made that shaped her current life.

The problem with rules...was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, not of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.

That's enough, no more hints. I can't give anything away of this compelling book and its everyday characters whose worlds are shaken. I loved each character, the writing, and especially the unexpected, highly satisfying ending. Not many stories wrap up with the same quality and bang as they begin. Highest recommendation.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Kingsolver, Barbara. Pigs in Heaven  

Engrossing, challenging novel of Turtle and Taylor Greer, a Native American child and her adoptive mother, challenged in court to return the child to her tribe to gain a cultural upbringing. 

Gaige, Amity. Schroder: A Novel  

A man on a spontaneous whim, decided to kidnap his young daughter and take her on a road trip without her mother's knowledge or permission. He intends her no harm, but merely wants to be with her for some time. But what are the implications of his actions as the day turns into a week, into several weeks, into ...? Beautifully and passionately written. (previously reviewed here)