Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg

Did You Ever Have A Family is the first novel from Bill Clegg; a New York Times bestseller, long-listed for the National Book Award, the Man Booker Prize, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Named one of the best books of the year by Amazon, Guardian, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, NPR, and Powell's.

I try to keep up with the National Book Award nominees, as I like more of their choices than any other group.

Told from several alternating points of view, it's a story of family tensions, relationships and secrets - about the ability to survive unendurable loss. The family hone where there is to be a wedding the next day has been burned to the ground in an explosion, killing June's daughter and fiancé, June's younger boyfriend, and even her ex-husband. Only June survives. While there is the mystery of how the accident happened, June gets into a car and begins to drive. The story unfolds through each of the characters observations - the caterer, an ex-husband, the mother of the boyfriend, a local teenager - all a part of an extended Connecticut community. Everyone touched by the tragedy is changed as truths about their histories come to light. There are also stories from people we haven't met yet, whom June is moving towards. As they come closer together, windows opens to a reveal a new possible future.

Bill Clegg is a New York literary agent, whose writing reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading John Cheever. I would agree with the comparisons also to Anne Tyler and John Updike. For a first novel it was very impressive and engaging, however, for me personally, it lacked something I can't put my finger on. Certainly the themes of the family you were born into and creating the family you want were fresh and interesting. There was a moment when a motel owner, whom June will meet, causally mentions a traumatic event in her neighbours life - something that was more shocking and powerful to me than June's story, and it passed by unexplored. There seemed to be too many of these misses in my opinion.

Well written but not a novel I would re-read.

2015 / Tradeback / 289 pages