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liralen's review against another edition
3.0
Every family has its secrets, but when Boast's father died—following his mother and brother—Boast learned just how deeply his family's secrets ran.
When I initially read the description of the book, I thought that Boast's father had had two families simultaneously, keeping each a secret from the other. The truth was rather more mundane—his father had previously been married, and Boast had half-brothers. But the effort the family put in to keep Boast and his brother (everybody else knew) in the dark is astounding: Whenever we visited [Boast's grandmother], I came to learn, Dad called ahead and had his mother take down all the pictures of my half brothers. Even as teenagers, Rory and I got into everything. We explored every inch of that bungalow—and never noticed the empty spaces on the walls, the scattered patches of wallpaper unfaded by sun. But what strikes me now, apart from the savage meticulousness of my father's secrecy, is that Granny Boast kept those photos of Arthur and Harry hanging, long after all hope of seeing them again had passed, restoring them to their rightful places in the family every time Dad had her take them down. It broke Granny Boast's heart, Aunty Sarah tells me, that she never saw her first two grandsons grow up (186–187).
This is one of those messy stories in which question after question unfolds, each making the story more complicated; with both Boast's parents gone, it is impossible for him to get many of those questions answered, or to fully understand their perspectives. Yet his half-brothers are able to answer some questions, and to paint a picture of a younger version of their father that astonished Boast: a man who, unlike the relatively retiring man Boast remembered, had been abusive, a philanderer, something of a dandy.
Now...I was not always particularly keen on the way Boast writes his own character, and that got in the way for me more than once. I also wondered whether he had just...too much information at times. The revelations about his father are big, and they take up the bulk of the book...but there's more that comes much later in the book (~269) and really isn't touched. This information came late in his research game, and I'm not sure if he thought that was something to investigate for another work or whether it just all felt like too much.
Messy things, families.
When I initially read the description of the book, I thought that Boast's father had had two families simultaneously, keeping each a secret from the other. The truth was rather more mundane—his father had previously been married, and Boast had half-brothers. But the effort the family put in to keep Boast and his brother (everybody else knew) in the dark is astounding: Whenever we visited [Boast's grandmother], I came to learn, Dad called ahead and had his mother take down all the pictures of my half brothers. Even as teenagers, Rory and I got into everything. We explored every inch of that bungalow—and never noticed the empty spaces on the walls, the scattered patches of wallpaper unfaded by sun. But what strikes me now, apart from the savage meticulousness of my father's secrecy, is that Granny Boast kept those photos of Arthur and Harry hanging, long after all hope of seeing them again had passed, restoring them to their rightful places in the family every time Dad had her take them down. It broke Granny Boast's heart, Aunty Sarah tells me, that she never saw her first two grandsons grow up (186–187).
This is one of those messy stories in which question after question unfolds, each making the story more complicated; with both Boast's parents gone, it is impossible for him to get many of those questions answered, or to fully understand their perspectives. Yet his half-brothers are able to answer some questions, and to paint a picture of a younger version of their father that astonished Boast: a man who, unlike the relatively retiring man Boast remembered, had been abusive, a philanderer, something of a dandy.
Now...I was not always particularly keen on the way Boast writes his own character, and that got in the way for me more than once. I also wondered whether he had just...too much information at times. The revelations about his father are big, and they take up the bulk of the book...but there's more
Spoiler
his mother had previously been married as well...and had given up a baby for adoption when she was 14Messy things, families.
shellybelly's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Cancer and Car accident
Minor: Alcoholism
clairellyn's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this book. It felt so familiar despite dealing with unimaginable tragedies. Loved loved loved the chapter about his experience with his home town library. Writing was wonderful, and the moments of his life that he chose to include really illustrated his family's dynamics.
lnatal's review
3.0
From BBC radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Jamie Parker reads Will Boast's extraordinary family story. A moving account of loss, confronting long-held secrets and finding a way of facing the future.
Following the tragic deaths, in quick succession, of his mother, younger brother and father, American author, Will Boast, at the age of twenty-four, finds himself absolutely alone. It's while he's putting his father's papers in order that he discovers a family secret which takes him back to England and compels him to question everything he thought he knew about his parents.
Abridged by Miranda Emmerson
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.
Jamie Parker reads Will Boast's extraordinary family story. A moving account of loss, confronting long-held secrets and finding a way of facing the future.
Following the tragic deaths, in quick succession, of his mother, younger brother and father, American author, Will Boast, at the age of twenty-four, finds himself absolutely alone. It's while he's putting his father's papers in order that he discovers a family secret which takes him back to England and compels him to question everything he thought he knew about his parents.
Abridged by Miranda Emmerson
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.
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