Three Children

The three children of Julia and David Lyon, an eccentric American family living in Puerto Rico, narrate their individual stories as they discover a devastating secret that their divorcing parents have been hiding from them

This engaging debut novel about an unconventional family is narrated in random turns by the three children of David and Julia Lyon. Raised in upstate New York, David opens his first supermarket in Puerto Rico in 1952 and continues to establish markets on other Caribbean islands. The children, Clarissa, Cora and Michael, born between 1955 and '60, grow up bilingual in an affluent suburb of San Juan. In the '70s the family moves to New York City; David and Julia's marriage disintegrates; and in a moment of extreme anger Julia reveals to the children the secret she has kept from them. This family portrait--gradually illuminating the bonds that unite the Lyons and the tensions that tear them apart--is as well the story of each of the children's coming-of-age. Although Toppel's nearly identical tone in the triple points of view gives rise to confusion about which character is speaking and a certain self-consciousness affects the prose, this is an absorbing story by a fluent, imaginative writer.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In an intriguing if fuzzily impressionistic first novel, Toppel explores a few years in the life of an affluent American family living in Puerto Rico and New York, telling their story in the alternating voices of three children. ``I trust water,'' confesses 25-year-old Clarissa Lyon. ``I know my limitations in water.'' From the time they are children, growing up pampered in San Juan, Clarissa, Cora, and Michael Lyon live in a world of subtle emotions and complicated emotional bonds. Their father is the rich American owner of an ever-expanding chain of grocery stores--social, cultured about wine and music, Jewish. Their mother is a brooding European Catholic, obsessed with her children and shadowed by murky wartime memories. For a time, Clarissa appears to be special to their father because she is graceful and proud and plays Bach like a prodigy. By the time Clarissa is a moody teen, however, younger Cora gets sick with a life-threatening disease that doctors insist is psychosomatic. Partly for Cora's sake and partly to expand his business, the adventurous father packs the family off to N.Y.C. From there, Clarissa decamps for Middlebury, while her mother and brother and sister languish on the Upper East Side. Soon, Father has flown the coop, abandoning a suffocating marriage for the tropical magic of Bat Island, a tiny tropical refuge that seems to hold special memories for him. In due course, the nature of those memories--the source of his special tie to Clarissa--is revealed, jolting the family to yet a new level of emotional intensity. A charming and atmospheric tale marred by a glaring shortcoming--each narrator sounds indistinguishable from the others in style and consciousness, lulling the action and sense of dramatic consequence like an indolent tropical breeze. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This first novel explores several years in the life of the Lyons family, composed of two daughters and a son who have a mother and father at odds with each other and the choices they have made. The children, Clarissa, Cora, and Michael, narrate alternating chapters that describe the exceptionally neurotic ways in which their parents deal with life. Some family secrets concerning infidelity and mistaken parentage are revealed, and as their parents divorce, the children are victimized by illness and poor relationships. The writing, although quite lyrical in spots, does not make up for the murky plot and less than lifelike characters. The alternating points of view occasionally confuse the plot. Descriptions of Puerto Rico and Bat Island, where some of the action takes place, do add some zest to the story. Larger fiction collections may want to consider.
- Harriet Gottfried, NYPL
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.