Joanna Hershon

A near-perfect chamber drama of grief, guilt, self-loathing, and privilege. 



Joanna Hershon’s story of middle-aged Sarah and Matthew’s fraught marriage—haunted by the specter of their daughter, Leda—brushes up against a strange encounter with a Czech man on a Brooklyn-bound subway train; a three-day weekend upstate with their estranged friends, Kiki and Arman (another couple having their own set of conflicts as new parents); and an armed assault in Prospect Park.

As these traumatic events collide and conflict with both past and present tensions, Hershon is able to build a highly convincing portrait of how absence is a marked presence in our lives, and how guilt can infect our interactions and relationships with those we love as well as with ourselves.

4.5 stars. Highly recommended.… (mais)

this wasn't what i was expecting, and it didn't turn out in a way that matched the buildup either. the tension was high throughout, and i guess i was waiting for the shoe to drop, for something terrible to happen, but it never really did. it was pretty well written and the tension kept it (mostly) engaging enough and moving fast for me, but i'm not sure it ever did what it was meant to.

"It would, she reasoned, be impossible for anyone to hear how Leda's senior year in high school was unfolding, and to not at least partially blame the parents or certainly the mother. Even as Sarah felt completely blindsided and not to blame, she had to be. Who wouldn't think that? How could she fault people? She was the mother. She was to blame."… (mais)

In this gently sad but non-memorable novel, the reader knows that there's something amiss with Leda, daughter of blocked filmmaker Sarah and her husband Matthew. After a violent mugging outside their home, the couple leaves Brooklyn for upstate NY and a visit to their former neighbors Kiki and Arman and their new baby. Sarah immediately lies about Leda's status and encounters other visitors and some MAGA types during the time frame of one long weekend. The denouement about Leda isn't dramatic enough to have been woven throughout the narrative, nor are mysteries about Kiki and Arman and what Matthew's been withholding. A pleasant meander but that's about all there is here.… (mais)

So, I finished this book and have been pondering over the last few days. Why, did I like this book so much and why does it continue to echo in my thoughts. There are no big action scenes, actually very little action action at all. I didn't especially like nor did I dislike the characters. Yet, this story drew me in, and kept me there.

Two couples, once good friends attempt to reconcile when one of the couples has a young daughter. Twenty years have passed and when they knew each other before, the other couple had a young child. They arrive to spend the weekend together, both are hiding something from the other, and tension simmers due to this. There is as much meaning in what is unsaid as in what is said. There is so much going on under the surface.

The truth is, this is life. Messy, complicated, the pulling apart, the making of concessions. I could relate to this book, these characters. Dreams can turn into failures, opportunities lost. Hopes, heartbreaks, hope and expectations. People come and go, in this book and in our lives. We act out of character, do things we don't understand as one of the characters does in the book.

The writing is terrific, the dialogue flows naturally. A book that makes one think about if afterwards is not rare, but not common either. I just feel lucky when I find/ read one that does.

ARC from Edelweiss.… (mais)