A "devilishly delightful" (Bookpage) new novel from an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and the author of What's Eating Gilbert Grape.
Tim and Kate Welch are seemingly the last middle-class family in the exclusive neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, NewYork. Tim is a popular history teacher, and an ordinary guy. Kate is not ordinary, but she aspires to be. Brought up by a hippie mother, Kate stays home with their two young sons trying to be the responsible parent she never had. But their neat and tidy world is turned upside down when Anna Brody- beautiful, wealthy, and impulsive-moves into the most expensive brownstone in Brooklyn, and draws Kate and Tim into her world.
I liked this more than I expected to. For some reason, I had been putting off reading it, afraid that it was going to come off as pretentious. Thankfully, I was wrong. It wasn’t pretentious, but it was one of those novels that didn’t really go far.
I was able to connect much more with Tim than with Kate. Tim is a bumbling young father who is somewhat misguided, and more than a little confused about what he wants out of life. Kate was much more dry, and frankly, uninteresting. It’s telling that, several weeks after I’ve finished the book, I can’t remember anything about her character other than she went from being a stay-at-home mom to the sole breadwinner.
Anna Brody could have been an interesting character, but she’s a little too mysterious. I have no idea what she may have seen in Tim, other than that he was there. I think the story would have benefited from some further exploration of that situation.
The book has been compared to Tom Perrotta, but it lacks some of Perrotta’s depth. Overall, I’m not sorry I read it, but it’s not a story that’s going to stick with me.
