For someone whose stomach bunches into knots when someone asks me to keep a secret and who can't tell a lie, books that have secrets and lies as their primary plot focus always draw me in. It must be the opposites attract theory.
The two families in the house are the curmudgeonly Mort, his increasingly distant wife, Rose, and their three daughters who live on the ground floor. Mort's older brother, easygoing Abe, and his loving wife, Helen, and their four boys all live on the top floor of the house. Mort and Abe, though opposite in personality, work together at a cardboard box-manufacturing company that they inherited from their father. Rose and Helen are housewives and best friends, so supportive of each other and their lives are so entwined, their living arrangement at first seems ideal. They're constantly in and out of each other's apartments and they share a very special bond. They even find themselves pregnant at the same time and while we, the readers, are privy to all of the secrets that hang in the air, there's enough drama as the story unfolds to keep it fresh and interesting. Rather than waiting to discover the secrets ourselves, we're waiting for the characters to find them out.
The book is easily readable and well-paced, as each chapter is only two or three pages long. The chapters are mainly told from the alternating perspectives of Mort, Rose, Abe and Helen, but there are also some sprinkled in from Judith (Mort and Rose's eldest daughter) and Natalie (the youngest girl) that provide different contexts and engaging insights that add further dimension to both the characters and storyline.
The characters are richly developed and watching them grow and evolve over the course of the twenty-three years this novel covers was intriguing. The author has a superb grip on character development and both the bigger and more subtle ways they transform are paced perfectly, making near-unbelievable circumstances seem entirely believable. The thought processes, reactions, responses and unique personality traits of each family member remained true to character at all times which only increased my empathy for them.
This novel covers the enormous range of drama all families have to deal with: everyday chaos and quiet moments, love and loss, complex family dynamics, secrets and lies and, perhaps most importantly of all, forgiveness. While I still can't fathom keeping such major life-altering secrets myself, it definitely made for a really compelling read. Highly recommend.
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