Synopsis
A family romance set in the 1970s follows the Hoods as they skid out of control in suburban Connecticut while Watergate unfolds and troops head home from Vietnam
Reviews
Exhaustive detailing of early 1970s popular/consumer culture in suburban New England provides the context for this archetypal tale of the American nuclear family in decline. The affluent WASP community of New Canaan, Conn., is home to the Hood and Williams families, neighboring two-parent, two-child households built around increasingly dysfunctional marriages. Benjamin Hood, plagued by a loss of importance at work and a growing drinking problem, pursues an ill-fated affair with Janey Williams; his wife, Elena, feels herself losing what little regard she has left for him. Meanwhile, the adolescent children of both families experiment with sex, alcohol and drugs to find identities and to overcome a ponderous sense of alienation. A neighborhood "key party," at which couples exchange mates by drawing keys out of a bowl, brings the action to a chaotic climax as an apocalyptic winter storm culminates in physical tragedy to match the emotional damage in the small community. Pop-cultural references of the time, from Hush Puppies to the film Billy Jack , pervade the text. Unfortunately, Moody, winner of the Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award for his first novel, Garden State , tends to use these details in a more encyclopedic than evocative manner. His depiction of these families, however, is insightful and convincing, penetrating the thoughts and fears of each individual. And the central tragedy of his tale remains resonant, though his decrying of our cultural wasteland seems a bit stale.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
In 1973, a decaying suburban Connecticut family has a bad day. Father Benjamin Hood is a middle-aged alcoholic, tormented by canker sores, in danger of losing his job as a media and entertainment expert for a high-end brokerage house, and having an affair with a neighbor named Janey. His wife, Elena, is cold and distant, even though she gets a kick reading about impotence in Masters and Johnson and believes herself ``capable of abandon.'' Fourteen-year-old Wendy Hood's raging hormones and desire to break out lead to dry humping in basements and graveyards and a daring public display with a girlfriend at a slumber party. Older brother Paul, relegated to boarding school, gets stoned and compulsively follows the comic book capers of the Fantastic Four. On this fateful day, Janey disappears in the middle of her afternoon rendezvous with Benjamin to do some shopping; Benjamin catches Wendy and Janey's son Mike going at it; Elena confronts Benjamin about his infidelity; Benjamin and Elena find themselves at a neighborhood key party (a '60s tradition that migrated belatedly to suburbia whereby men toss their keys in a bowl at the beginning of the night and at the end of the night the women randomly select a set and go off with its owner); Janey purposely shies away from the Hood key ring; Benjamin passes out on the bathroom floor; Elena goes off with Janey's husband; Wendy wanders over to Mike's house and seduces his younger brother Sandy because Mike isn't around; Paul makes an unsuccessful play for the woman of his dreams with alcohol and drugs; and matters only get worse because a vicious northeaster rages outside. Moody (Garden State, 1992) masterfully captures suburban angst through lucid detail. But his characters lack substance so that we don't care what happens to them, and in the end, it seems, neither do they. Too cold. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Moody's first novel, Garden State, won the Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award in 1991. Now he takes readers back to a very Updikean version of the 1970s: upper-middle-class discontents expressed through fumbling adventures on the sexual frontier. Benjamin Hood and his wife, Elena, barely communicate, but their neighbors, the Williams, provide diversions for them, both in fantasy and reality. Simultaneously, the couples' children, young adults all, meet and play sexual games of their own. Moody can turn a phrase--"The past was so past it hurt"--and his description of what happens when hungover Benjamin Hood carries Mike Williams home is truly unforgettable. The theme of sexual adventure in the split-level suburbs, however, has lost a bit of its freshness. Moody is a talented writer in search of better material. Marginally recommended. Eloise Kinney
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