In the Middle of All This - Hardcover

Leebron, Fred G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151008345 ISBN 13: 9780151008346

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002

Synopsis

Martin Kreutzel and his ill sister, Elizabeth, are as close as grown siblings can be-they have an essential connection. However, she lives with her husband outside of London and he lives with his wife and two children in a small Pennsylvania college town where he and his wife are both professors. Neither one of them likes the atmosphere there but they both have tenure track positions and can raise their two children in a safe neighborhood, in a house they can own. As Elizabeth's cancer worsens, Martin's love for her cripples his abilities at work and at home. When Elizabeth's husband, Richard, disappears for a few days, and one of Martin's students hangs herself, Martin finds himself torn between serving his sister and being a good husband, father, and professor. After Martin makes a trip to London to be with his sister, the situation gets stranger, alarming even, when Richard returns and whisks his wife off for the day, disappearing again, except this time he takes Elizabeth with him.
Leebron's compelling third novel brings us into the world of domestic unease as two couples and their joined families wrestle with empathy's limitations in the uncompromising teeth of mortality.

About this title

About the Author

Fred G. Leebron, a creative writing professor and a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, has received a Fulbright scholarship, a James Michener Award, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and an O. Henry Award. His stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Grand Street, Triquarterly, and DoubleTake. He lives in south central Pennsylvania.

From the Back Cover

"In the Middle of All This is a very fine novel. It seizes the reader's attention and doesn't let go until the last word. It is really an extraordinary work in its understanding of the human condition, the shifting ways we feel about what happens to us, and in its beautiful plainness of language, plainness as essential as real emotion and real thought."
--Paula Fox, author of Borrowed Finery

"Written with remarkable clarity and honesty, this book is a poignant love song that celebrates the fears and difficulties of a family facing the potential vastness of loss. Bravely, unsparingly, Fred Leebron has placed with exquisite perfection, the small details of domestic life up against the large incomprehensibility of our mortality."
--Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle

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"In the Middle of All This is a very fine novel. It seizes the reader's attention and doesn't let go until the last word. It is really an extraordinary work in its understanding of the human condition, the shifting ways we feel about what happens to us, and in its beautiful plainness of language, plainness as essential as real emotion and real thought."
--Paula Fox, author of Borrowed Finery

"Written with remarkable clarity and honesty, this book is a poignant love song that celebrates the fears and difficulties of a family facing the potential vastness of loss. Bravely, unsparingly, Fred Leebron has placed with exquisite perfection, the small details of domestic life up against the large incomprehensibility of our mortality."
--Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle

Reviews

This third novel by Leebron (Out West; Six Figures) tells the story of Martin Kreutzel, an anthropology professor at a small Pennsylvania college. Happily married and the father of two children, Martin watches his life collapse around him when he learns that his beloved sister, Elizabeth, is ill with cancer. Suddenly, Martin, the scientist whose preferred method is that of the "observer-participant," can neither observe nor participate, unable to cope with his sister's imminent death, unable to decide "whether mercy meant denial or acceptance." When his sister's husband, Richard, disappears, Martin flies to London to be with Elizabeth, leaving behind a house falling apart and a college struck by a series of tragedies. Shortly after Martin's arrival, Richard mysteriously returns and whisks Elizabeth off to an undisclosed location, leaving Martin in an empty house, futilely awaiting their return. In his sister's absence, Martin must learn to accept not only the loss of her life but the validity of his. Leebron tells most of his open-ended story from Martin's viewpoint, providing an uneasy glimpse into the psyche of a man torn apart, a man forced to acknowledge grim realities and to realize that "life in the middle of all this" meant that "life was the middle of all this." Leebron's exceptional skills as a storyteller and observer of humanity produce a novel both tremendously enjoyable and grandly poignant, a novel almost anthropological in its keen examination of man's fate.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This meditation on identity asks why the Arab world increasingly looks like a stronghold of fanaticism. The author, a Lebaneseborn Christian who is now a resident of France, points out that Islam is not, historically, any more violent than Christianity, and looks at the forces currently acting upon it. While noting the Middle East's poverty and instability, he also suggests that after the fall of the Soviet Union those who might once have turned to Communism as an agency of political change now turn to fanaticism, and its promise of salvation through action. Maalouf, a novelist, doesn't support his generalized argument with scholarly detail, but this is nevertheless an eloquent introductory exploration of why, in this age of globalization, we need to abandon our historical idea of identity as a single religious or national alliance.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Leebron's new work is being compared to works by Richard Ford and Raymond Carver, though he may be more reminiscent of the former than the latter. His third novel (after Out West and Six Figures) focuses on a man caught in strong, eddying currents who seems to want to control them but cannot and must either make a separate peace or be drawn under. Martin Kreutzel teaches college in a small Pennsylvania town, where his house is leaking, his children seem to be normal, and his colleagues are facing such vicissitudes as a spouse's substance abuse and a student's suicide. His main concern at the moment is his London-based sister, Elizabeth, a vigorous woman who is dying of cancer. When Elizabeth's husband disappears for a few days, Martin rushes to London to be with her. After Martin returns home, Elizabeth herself disappears, presumably to make her own peace with her foreshortened future. Leebron is an engaging writer, and it remains to be seen if he will find a larger audience. Recommended for literary fiction collections.
Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib. of NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Martin and Lauren have two precocious children and tenure-track positions at a small Pennsylvania college. In what should be bright years in their life they are faced with tragedies, both minor and major. A powerful professor in their department hates them, a student kills herself, their basement continues to flood, Martin's father has cancer, Martin gets two flat tires in one day, and his beloved sister Elizabeth has 40 tumors on her spine. Elizabeth lives in London, and when her mysterious husband, Richard, disappears, Martin goes to try to help her. Richard reappears and then disappears again, taking Elizabeth with him and throwing Martin and Lauren further into chaos and despair. It is Lauren who discovers during one of her recurring migraines that "life [is] the middle of all this." Leebron's novel is well crafted and he creates a palpable feeling of despair and pain in all of his major characters. Unfortunately, Richard is left a little too mysterious, leaving the reader with unsatisfied questions about Elizabeth's fate. Marta Segal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151008345
• ISBN 13: 9780151008346
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 251