The Testing of Luther Albright

A mercilessly gripping and remarkable debut novel about a man determined not to repeat his father's mistakes.

Luther Albright is a builder of dams, a man whose greatest pride – besides his family – is the house he built himself and the knowledge that he's constructed something that will shelter them from harm.

However, when a minor earthquake shakes his California home it soon reveals fault lines within his family. His son's behaviour becomes increasingly bizarre and threatening, his devoted wife more distant. Meanwhile, the dam Luther built comes under investigation for structural flaws exposed by the earthquake. Nightmarish implications begin to emerge from the most innocent of places as the psychological suspense heightens, to create this harrowing portrait of a decent but flawed man who cannot see the truth.

In the spirit of Rosellen Brown and Alice McDermott, this is a harrowing portrait of an ordinary man who finds himself being tested and strives not to be found wanting.

MacKenzie Bezos's The Testing of Luther Albright, a debut novel that heralds the beginning of what bodes to be a substantial writing career, starts with this sentence: "The year I lost my wife and son, my son performed nine separate tests of my character." We don't know what "lost" means yet, but as the story unfolds, we learn that "lost" is certainly the most appropriate word.

The novel is rich with symbolism: Luther's cherished, hand-built home has a problem--and he can't find it. He is an engineer who builds dams and the structure of one of his dams is under review following an earthquake. At every turn, Luther is under siege, being tested. There are many places in the narrative where Luther might have done or said something that would have kept his wife Liz and his son Elliot close to him. Instead, a slow drift away from each other begins and then accelerates until a chasm is created.

The tests that Elliot inflicts on his father take many forms: a shaved head, sabotage of his father's meticulous home-plumbing, a downright lie about a job, a friendship with a man his father despises. All these tests are given in the hope of eliciting a valid response from Luther. Whether it is anger, shame, disappointment, embarrassment, chagrin--Elliot wants his repressed father to show it to him, to have a reaction, and Luther cannot or will not do it. The story is reminiscent in some ways of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, at least in those parts where Franzen chronicles so faithfully peoples' ability to withhold from one another. What Luther withholds is emotional honesty; indeed, real feeling of any stripe.

Elliot is writing a research paper on his grandfather and, since he has never met him, must ask Luther many questions. Luther is not forthcoming, gives monosylllabic answers and never helps Elliot in any meaningful way. Bezos (wife of Amazon.com founder Jeff) uses this device to allow Luther to reminisce privately about his father, who was emotionally unavailable and manipulative. He spent many nights sitting alone in a movie theatre and then reported to his wife that he was having an affair. She says, "I forgive you," believing that unconditional love is what she must give. Of course, his father is bitterly disappointed by this response. Luther has followed him and knows that the story isn't true. Thus is internalized a way of behaving that kills all chance for real intimacy. Luther learns his lesson well.

A story about a controlling person unable to bend to the needs of his wife and son, and yet honestly loving them inordinately, might be merely a dry recitation if it weren't for the beauty of Bezos's writing and for her ability to show us how trapped Luther is by his background and nature. Bezos writes with complete control of her material. She makes the reader eager to know what's next. --Valerie Ryan