A review by beastreader
An American Family by Peter Lefcourt

4.0

Meet the Perl family...Nathan, Lillian, Jacob "Jackie", Michael, Elaine, Steven, and Bobbie. The day is Friday, November 22, 1963. This day will go down in history as one of the most memorable days in history. The day that President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. The Perl family can remember that day but life does go on. Eventually the Perl family survive the Vietnam War, Woodstock, drugs, aids, homophobia, and the attack of September 11th. No matter, how many different directions, they travel or how hard times get, the Perl family does stick together as they are family.

I am not familar with Mr. Lefcourt's work either in the book world or the movie and television world. What drew me to this book was the book summary. This book sounded like some good, old fashion American goodness. I was looking for something like this and I did find it in An American Family. My only criticism is that it took me a little while to get into this book and attach to the Perl family.

The Perl family is an interesting bunch. I mean this in a good way. While, I had no one favorite, each one brought something different to the story and helped mold it. Michael is not really a bad guy, he was trying to do good but just found it hard to survive like the rest of us middle class folks. Jackie, he was a womanizer. There always has to be one of those. Bobbie was the wild child. Readers could live vicariously through her and remember their own wild days. That is what this book was about. The good and bad times. People who lived in the past during these events will remember them and can relate in some way to one or more of the Perl family. An American Family is as good as apple pie!