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One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit. The unfolding drama contains wit and humour, it’s smart, a little bit dark on occasions and the different perspectives flow smoothly and keep the focus.
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Would all their secrets get in the way of executing the “perfect” party for Adam’s seventieth birthday? Adrienne Brodeur (Wild Game) is a master when it comes to writing about family dysfunction and her portrayal of a bi-polar, narcissistic father and his flawed but fully human children is spot-on. To think, so many people were desperate to get their hands on a bottle of Ritalin or Adderall, and Adam was lucky enough to have a built-in supply. A consummate summer read, which somehow evokes smooth beach glass and hot pink sunsets with nary a mention of either. This obsession was no doubt informed by my own family who were prodigious secret keepers going back for generations.
Emily, the mother “Ken lost, and Abby never had,” died immediately after Abby’s birth, and looms like a shadow throughout the novel.He realized now that lithium, the magical salt that had stabilized his moods for years, had also been sapping his energy and brainpower. As often happened at dusk, a fracas erupted offshore—bluefish, crazed with hunger, thrashed, and arced open-mouthed, having corralled a school of bunkers to the surface. What’s remarkable about this subtle evocation of our final pre-Trump summer is that it’s as unremarkable to the Gardners as it was to most Americans. The immediate effect is energizing: He professes “a remarkable facility with a broad and unexpected range of topics: Shaker furniture, Tibetan culture, black holes, Homer, string theory, you name it,” and, most notably, the language of whales. Friendly Franco – He is a Spaniard boy who is always on his best behaviour, and is quite possibly the kindest boy in the world.
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