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A review by abookishaffair
An American Family by Peter Lefcourt
4.0
I love stories about families! The Perl family is a Jewish family living in and around New York City and the story covers from the early 60s to 2001. One cool thing is that the author used stories from his own family's history, which I loved. The focus of the story is definitely the Perl family but there is a ton of historical detail interwoven within the family's story. So even though I wouldn't call this book purely historical fiction, there are a lot of things that historical fiction lovers will enjoy. I especially enjoyed the detail about the late 1960s and early 1970s counter-culture. That's such a fascinating time for me.
I really liked Bobbie's story probably the best. As the youngest Perl child, she's sort of the wild card in the family (it's between her and Steven, the son who is confronting whether or not to be true to himself and risk alienating his family). Bobbie is coming of age right during the hippie movement. She gets into a lot of trouble and seems to be bent on becoming the black sheep of the family. She goes to Woodstock and after a drug induced one night stand, she becomes pregnant and creates a really elaborate story about the parentage of her daughter, who she names Grace Slick. Bobbie is incredibly lost but the sort of beautiful thing is that on the whole, her family is still ready to help and try to make life a little more normal for Bobbie and Grace Slick.
Peter Lefcourt has a background in screenwriting and you can definitely tell in this book. He really has a way with words that made the stories of the various characters really come alive. You can imagine exactly what is happening. His writing is incredibly vivid and really makes you care for all of the members of the Perl family.
I really loved getting to know all of the members of the Perl family. They're an interesting group of individuals who have very different ideas of what it means to live but they're still a family. This book will appeal to fans of mulch-generational family stories with lots of interesting characters.
I really liked Bobbie's story probably the best. As the youngest Perl child, she's sort of the wild card in the family (it's between her and Steven, the son who is confronting whether or not to be true to himself and risk alienating his family). Bobbie is coming of age right during the hippie movement. She gets into a lot of trouble and seems to be bent on becoming the black sheep of the family. She goes to Woodstock and after a drug induced one night stand, she becomes pregnant and creates a really elaborate story about the parentage of her daughter, who she names Grace Slick. Bobbie is incredibly lost but the sort of beautiful thing is that on the whole, her family is still ready to help and try to make life a little more normal for Bobbie and Grace Slick.
Peter Lefcourt has a background in screenwriting and you can definitely tell in this book. He really has a way with words that made the stories of the various characters really come alive. You can imagine exactly what is happening. His writing is incredibly vivid and really makes you care for all of the members of the Perl family.
I really loved getting to know all of the members of the Perl family. They're an interesting group of individuals who have very different ideas of what it means to live but they're still a family. This book will appeal to fans of mulch-generational family stories with lots of interesting characters.