A family is torn apart by decisions made when their teen children are involved in a car crash which kills another teen. The father, Ben, is a doctor, who pulls the girl from the wreck, when he shouldn't have moved her. She later dies in the hospital. They never discuss this. Theo and Sarah, and the mom, Mimi, are all changed by this one event and their lives are a series of regrets.
New neighbors move in, and Ben assists in the birth of their child, Waldo, who is born premature, and at home. The parents' marriage is rocky and Waldo is a genius. Mimi and Waldo meet later when Mimi has Alzheimers and is wandering and Waldo has run away. That night also bonds Waldo to Ben.
A sad commentary on how one event/error in judgment can affect us for our entire lives. ( )

Admit this novel disappointed me. It's not a bad book (Shapiro's a competent storyteller), but I feel like the blurbs and reviews significantly misrepresent and oversell the nature of the story. What you get is a lot less than what you are led to expect.

For instance, the summary on the back cover of the book promises a tale of two families whose lives/fates become intertwined in some profound way, perhaps having to do with the secrets that each family is keeping - or so the text darkly hints. Instead, Shapiro gives us two families that, apart from living across the street from each other, barely interact; and a single secret, related to a tragic accident, that ends up contributing little to the story. (The accidental itself is meaningful; the lie related to the accident, not so much.)

The summary likewise promises "a magical story ... where stars collapse and stories collide." Instead, the novel delivers a cast of rather ordinary people facing a host of rather ordinary problems: spouses battling Alzheimer's, neurodivergent children, inferiority complexes, poor parenting, survivor guilt. The characters are largely static and not entirely credible: one set of parents is a little too perfect, the other set of parents a little too awful, and all the children are endowed with improbable giftedness (a producer of award winning films, a famous chef, a brilliant astrophysicist). The lives of the characters wax and wane in ways that are more or less recognizable, but certainly nothing one would describe as "magical."

The summary suggests that astrophysics will serve as a metaphor for human interconnection, but I don't feel like Shapiro makes this work either. Telling the story out of sequence (the chapters hop through time) is an interesting gimmick, but not nearly enough to establish that "perhaps time is not a continuum, but rather, past, present and future are always and forever unspooling." And while it's technically true that we are all of us comprised of star stuff (insofar as all atoms are borne from stars), that's hardly solid ground for asserting that "Perhaps each [star] is what remains of every soul who has ever lived." Souls, friendship, love, guilt, joy ... these are all things that transcend periodic tables and the laws of physics.

Finally, I'm at a loss to understand why this won the National Jewish Book Award, as neither Jewish spirituality, tradition, nor identity influence the tale in any meaningful way. Honestly, besides a few references to bar mitzvahs and sitting shiva, the families could be Rastafarians for all it matters to the plot or character development.

I've read some other reviews that suggest that this may be one of Shapiro's weaker efforts. I've also read that this is her first novel in 15yrs. Perhaps the reviewers who heaped praises on this are considering her collected works rather than this outing in particular? ( )

Ultimately I worry this is the weakest of Shapiro's novels which generally I've really liked. She's got a great way with words and atmosphere. What failed for me in this novel was the plethora of characters who basically all make the same mistakes with the same dialogue. Too bad. ( )

This is the story of two families who lived across the street from each other for many years. Benjamin, a doctor, and his wife Mimi, are older. In 1985, their teenage children Sarah and Theo are involved in a life-changing event which results in the death of another teenager. Some years later, the Shankmans move in across the street, and in 1999 their son Waldo is born.

The novel is told non-chronologically, and focuses on certain years in which pivotal events affecting one or both of the families occur. The novel opens in 2010, on the night before Ben is moving away. On that same night, Waldo runs away. Over the years, there is a strange interconnection between what is happening in the lives of the members of the two families. We watch Sarah and Theo develop from teenagers to older middle-aged adults, Ben and Mimi age, and even Waldo grow up to adulthood over the course of the novel.

I actually liked the way the story is told non-chronologically, so that sometimes we are mystified and later entries clarify things. The author does a good job of peeling away layers as she tells the story. However, there were several things that just did not ring true for me. For example, after Sarah and Theo cause the death of another teenager, there are no consequences for them. Even beyond this, their parents, who are intelligent and responsible decide that the incident will never be spoken of again. The teens are not afforded counseling or therapy to deal with issues that may arise from guilt or grief. (The incident clearly involved at least potential criminal negligence). Another example that didn't ring true is that despite Ben's having saved Waldo's mother's life ( he rushed across the street in 1999 to deliver Waldo who was being born in an emergency sort of way), the families seem to thereafter ignore each other for the most part. Waldo didn't even know the story of his birth. How could this be? When I learned later in the book of this connection between Waldo and Ben, I had to go back and reread the opening (the night in 2010 when Ben is moving away and Waldo runs away), when the two meet on the street, and it is written as if neither knows anything at all about the other.

Shapiro is a somewhat prolific author, and this is a very recent book, so although this is the first book by her I have read, and to an extent I enjoyed it, I would have expected more inherent logic in her plot. I liked this enough that I went on to read another book by her, but I did have problems with it.

2 1/2 stars ( )

Great writing, and story. Slow paced and not much plot, but the characters are real and flawed. ( )