The Perfect Family

Robert Gregory, his wife Margaret, and their three children are considered by friends and neighbors to be an exemplary family until, during the 1960s, the complex and unspoken forces that have bound the Gregory's together begin to fall apart

This intermittently absorbing first novel begins in a California courtroom, where Judith Gregory is being tried for the mercy killing of her gravely ill mother, Margaret. Judith's father, Robert, her daughter Emma, her sister Christine and her brother Edward nervously await a verdict. After this provocative start, the momentum slows as the scene shifts abruptly, traveling back to the time when Robert and Margaret Gregory began raising their children. As pivotal events in their lives unfold, we learn that the perfect Gregory family was not so perfect. Judith, an unmarried mother, has never revealed the identity of Emma's father. Edward, always the bright one, is a secret drinker. Christine's husband committed suicide, leaving his child-like wife pregnant. The resentments the Gregorys hold toward one another are revealed skillfully, but they never become gripping enough to divert the reader from the courtroom drama taking place. Unfortunately, when the narrative returns to the present, readers may be disappointed by the pat and too-sentimental conclusion.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As the family gathers to support Judith at her trial for the mercy killing of her mother, each family member reflects on past events, and the lucky reader gets to see events from each one's vantage point. We know more than they do and can better understand Judith, the eldest, bright, beautiful, athletic; Robert, the father whose orphaned childhood deprived him of wise fathering; Christine, the sister who took a long time to grow up in Judith's shadow; Eddie, little brother, whose drinking got in the way of his genius; Emma, Judith's fatherless child; and Margaret, the mother, so practical that no one really understood the depth of her love. A contemporary novel of family relationships in which expectations are confused with love. Recommended. Marion Hanscom, SUNY at Binghamton Lib.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.