Too much fiction today consists of overblown prose and literary pyrotechnics that leave me emotionally cold and intellectually unimpressed. Ms. Shapiro is guilty of none of that. She has written a novel that first struck me as simple and unimposing. I finished it in two days. Then it began to live and breathe inside me. The main characters, Rachel & Ned, and daughter Kate became people I knew, characters in my own life. I found myself wondering about them and wanting to talk to my friends about them to see what has happened to them. (And I've begged all my friends to read this book so we could talk about it.) I could expect nothing more from a work of fiction. Read this book. Savor it.

Family History is a moving, literate and compelling book about a family- one which could be yours or mine because we are all captive to the vagaries of life. Not one of us is promised joy, happiness, lack of travail or good luck. This is a story about a family which from the outside should be the envy of the community. They have beauty, intelligence and each other and yet that may not be enough to save them. Shapiro takes us inside the soul of the Jensen family and keeps us guessing about what has gone so terribly wrong to such good people. Why is their world spiraling out of control?
Shapiro is a gifted and insightful writer. She makes us care about people who are not always likeable. If you don't recognize yourself within this family -- you haven't been paying attention to your life.

FAMILY HISTORY by Dani Shapiro

FAMILY HISTORY is a story of a woman's struggle to keep her family together and herself sane after a series of events threatens to hurt her marriage and tear it apart.

Rachel Jensen at one point in her life was able to say that she had the perfect life. She was not financially rich by any means, but she could vouch that her family was a happy one, and her marriage was solid and full of love and laughter. There wasn't anything she felt she lacked monetarily, and this was important to her, since throughout their marriage they had to prove to their parents that they could indeed make it financially on the type of dreams they were shooting for. She knew she was the envy of others, and would never have thought that this world that she was familiar with was about to come crashing down around her.

The book opens to a scene with Rachel sitting alone in her bedroom, wallowing in self-pity as she watches old home movies of her husband and her daughter Kate laughing and smiling. It is a movie of happier times, before the baby was born, and before their daughter Kate started to change right before their eyes.

The reader knows immediately that there is something terribly wrong, as she is sitting in her bedroom alone in the dark. Her husband no longer lives with her, and their daughter has not lived with them in quite a while. All that is left in her life is baby Josh, and he is far too young to comprehend that anything is wrong with their family.

The destructive events that occur that destroy the harmony of the family are centered on Kate, who by this time is a young teenager going through a lot of extreme emotional and behavioral changes. Rachel is told that this is just a phase all teenagers go through, and Rachel believes it for a while, but when Kate's behavior becomes so hard to manage, Rachel is not sure what to think anymore.

The book is told in parallel - we see flashbacks of her courtship with her husband Ned and their early years together in New York. At the same time we are back in the present day, where Ned and Rachel are worrying about the future of their daughter Kate, who is in an institution for troubled young adults. I felt this method of story-telling helped keep the action moving, and kept my interest in the characters alive as I got to know them starting from their younger years together and through their current messed up lives.

The climax of events leads to a horrible accident that could have been prevented, and that event in turn leads to yet another horrible incident that causes the break up of the family. It is a living nightmare that they are going through, and no one knows if there is any relief in sight.

FAMILY HISTORY by Dani Shapiro is a book that was so intense that it was probably the fastest read I've had in a long time. It's one of those books that you can't put down. I want to compare this book to Elizabeth Berg's best novels, which often center on strong women or women who are trying to find themselves and make new lives for themselves. In FAMILY HISTORY, we have a woman that thought her love was strong enough to deal with any obstacle, but finds her love is tested because of a child that is ill. I'm giving this an enthusiastic thumbs up, and am willing to read any other book that has been penned by Dani Shapiro.

All the recipes work as promised. Includes many favorites that I have enjoyed all my life. Highly recommended.