A Friend of the Family

Starred review from July 6, 2009
In her wonderful second novel, Grodstein (Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love
) traces a suburban crisis and gives especially perceptive attention to the father-son bond. Pete Dizinoff has it pretty good—an internist with a successful practice, loving wife, nice house in a safe New Jersey suburb and his best friend living close by—but there’s some nasty muck beneath the surface. Some years back, Laura, the daughter of Pete’s best friend, Joe, was suspected of murdering her baby upon birth. Now in her early 30s, Laura’s returned to town after several years of leisurely work and travel and is seducing Pete’s college dropout son, Alec, who is also back in town, pursuing the life of a painter in his parents’ garage. Laura does not fit into Pete’s idea of what’s best for his son, but when Pete intervenes, things spin wildly out of control. Add to this a malpractice case, and Pete senses his life is falling apart. An astute dissector of male aspiration, Grodstein brings great insight into a father’s protective urge for his son in this gripping portrait of an American family in crisis.

August 15, 2009
The road to hell is paved with a father's good intentions.

Grodstein (Reproduction is the Flaw of Love, 2004, etc.) pushes some powerful emotional buttons in this tale of male mid-life angst, atavism and breakdown. Narrator Peter Dizinoff, a successful, occasionally dictatorial Jewish internist, has made good in exactly the way the American Dream promised his hard-working parents in Yonkers. He has a lovely home in New Jersey, a caring wife who has survived breast cancer, a thriving medical practice, good friends and a beloved son. Peter is proud of Alec and wants the best for his son, so he's understandably disappointed when Alec turns rebellious, drops out of college and gets involved with the troubled daughter of Peter's best friend Joe Stern. At 17, Laura Stern gave birth to a premature baby and abandoned it in a dumpster with a crushed skull. Acquitted of deliberate murder, she spent two years in a psychiatric facility and more than a decade away from home. Returning for a visit in 2006, this"polished, flirtatious" 31-year-old attracts the fascinated attention of considerably younger Alec. The novel doesn't hurry to reveal how Peter comes, some time after this encounter, to be living alone above the garage of his house, rejected by his wife, Alec and Joe, forced to start a new medical practice in a poorer part of town. The twisting, occasionally confusing retrospective storyline is only the most notable of the author's flaws in construction; direction and plotting are similarly problematic, especially the conclusion, with its pile-up of not quite plausible failures. Nonetheless, Grodstein's wry insights, her fully imagined social panorama and her vision of a middle-class man at the crossroads testify to her considerable skill.

Ambitious, often impressive but structurally flawed work.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2009
Pete Dizinoff is desperately trying to figure out how it all went wrong. Once a well-regarded internist with a loving wife and son and a beautiful home in a New Jersey suburb, he is now in danger of losing not only his reputation but also the love of his family. As he obsessively replays past events, including losing the love of his life, Iris, to his best friend, Joe, he also struggles with problems in the present, including a lawsuit from the family of a dead patient and the enmity of his son, Alec. Pete has repeatedly bailed Alec out of trouble, but the tipping point is Alecs involvement with Iris and Joes troubled daughter, Laura, which has led to a nasty confrontation. In her second novel, following Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love (2004), Grodstein navigates a tricky flashback structure while also creating a good deal of sympathy for a sometimes unlikable and controlling father. A gripping prose style and an impressive insight into paternal love are at the heart of this books appeal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 21, 2009
There are grave consequences when Pete Dizinoff, a successful doctor, tries to keep his son from being seduced by Laura, a possible murderess and the daughter of Pete's best friend. Grodstein's superb second novel is a deft portrayal of suburban life, and Adamson more than does justice to the fine material in his tour-de-force performance. With his ability to shift from pathos to restraint, he creates realistically layered characters that grip readers from the start and linger long after the finish. An Algonquin hardcover (Reviews, Jul. 6).