Family Matters

On the first page of Split, by Swati Avasthi, sixteen-year-old Jace Witherspoon stands on his older brother's doorstep. He has $3.84 in his pocket, a broken face, and not much else. And after that last blowup with his dad, he can't go back home.

His brother Christian, who left the family when he couldn't deal with their abusive father anymore, immediately takes him in. Jace wants to build a new life for himself, but he can't stop thinking about his mom, now her husband's only punching bag.

He also can't stop thinking about what he did to his own girlfriend before he left.

We've all read the novels about abusive families, and we've all heard the statistics about abused children growing up to become abusers. In this powerful first novel, Avasthi pulls us into the head of a young man who's struggling with the question: can you ever really escape the person your family has made you into?

The Forgotten Waltz

Anne Enright explores adultery - Irish style - in her latest novel The Forgotten Waltz as Gina Moynihan recalls her attraction to Sean, the resulting affair and the casualties resulting from the dissolution of two families. What starts as a story about a self-absorbed love affair becomes an unsentimental cautionary tale told through sharp observations and unflinching prose.  As with all of us, Gina's recollections are not linear and the most compelling are the dynamics between Gina and her beautiful excessive parents, and Sean with his brittle wife and fragile daughter.

The Library Journal summarizes this complicated tale best when describing it as, "A breathtaking work that will surprise you." Be surprised by this and other fine works by Anne Engright including her Man Booker Prize winning novel, The Gathering at your Library.

Vicki Ann