September 1, 2014
At the beginning of Pittard’s emotionally astute second novel (after 2011’s The Fates Will Find Their Way), Kate, a struggling screenwriter, is sitting on the tarmac at an airport; her flight has been grounded because of a storm. While on the runway, Kate receives word that her father is dead. He’s left behind a string of ex-wives (five, to be exact), and, in addition to her sister and brother, Kate has a passel of half-siblings. When this family of sorts gathers in Atlanta for the funeral, there is tension, pain, comedy, and finally, a some healing and resolution. Kate is a winning narrator, whose insights into herself and her family keep the pages turning: describing the relationship between her sister and herself, Kate says “Nell and I talk every day, whether we want to or not. We are addicted to conversation. We are in love with ourselves and our banter and maybe even with each other.” Kate’s voice, the real draw, even extends to the chapter titles (“A Partial List of the Secrets I Keep Track of While I Lie Awake in Bed Most Nights”).
June 15, 2014
A man's unexpected death brings his children from five different marriages together for the first, and most likely last, time.Pittard (The Fates Will Find Their Way, 2011) throws a family (that doesn't consider itself a family) together and watches them fall apart. The narrator, Kate, and her two close siblings, Nell and Elliot, came from their father's first marriage. After their mother died, their dad embraced adultery, jumping from one wife to the next, cheating on them and having children with all of them. As a result of their father's behavior, the three "original siblings," who weren't in touch with him when he died, believe strongly in being faithful. In spite of that, Kate recently cheated on her husband, Peter, who now wants a child, despite having had a vasectomy earlier in their marriage, and has asked her to consider adoption. She hasn't told her siblings yet, and she's also keeping another secret from them: She blew through the money she made early in her career as a screenwriter, and then some, and now lives almost completely off her husband's generosity while she pays back $48,000 in credit-card debt. She explains, "I was raised thinking we had money, comfort. I was raised thinking that same money and comfort would filter naturally into my own bank account." Over the course of her father's funeral, Kate begins to realize how much she has in common with him. Only when interacting with her youngest half sister, Mindy, does she seem to truly care that her self-absorption could hurt others. But, this, in the end, may not be enough of a payoff for the reader.While well-written, with a clear narrative voice, the novel fails to produce much more than superficial revelations.
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September 15, 2014
Kate Pulaski's life is already spiraling out of control when her 69-year-old father, Stan, commits suicide in his condo in Atlanta. Kate hardly cares, but her older brother and sister, Elliott and Nell, want her in Atlanta with them to say good-bye to the man who married four more times after their mother died and sired more children along the way, among them 6-year-old Mindy, his daughter with current young wife, Sasha. But narrator Kate, a failed screenwriter, is more concerned with the likely breakup of her own marriage after her recent affair and how she'll continue to pay off her five-figure credit-card debt and student loans plus how to reveal all this to Nell and Elliott. Kate is a liar who meddles to near-disastrous effect in Elliott's marriage, but she is also funny and charming enough that the bonds of family prevail. Pittard's second novel, after The Fates Will Find Their Way (2011), takes a warm and witty look at an unusual dysfunctional family and extols the lasting bonds between siblings. Truly engaging.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)