Thursday, January 7, 2010

A Theory of All Things by Peggy Leon

The Bennett family has had their share of tragedy. Their mother walked out the door and never came back and a few years later Peter, the eldest, killed himself. Now the remaining children are in their thirties and discovering the impact those early events had on them.

Mary has never left home. When her mother left, she took on the role of mother, raising her brothers and sisters, helping her father in his business and now caring for him in the early stages of Alzheimers. Mark graduated college at the age of fourteen and now works in the astrophysics department of Stanford. Sarah and Ellie are twins and artists. Sarah photographs the homeless and Ellie paints and sculpts on an island in Greece where she lives with her teenage lover. Luke, the youngest, is also an artist, creating mobiles from found aluminum cans.

Then Mark, the socially awkward genius commits some faux pas at a faculty function, Sarah finds a homeless woman who might be their long lost mother, Ellie discovers she's pregnant and her boyfriend leaves her, and the tattooed and pierced Willow attaches herself to Luke, frightening Mary in the process.

Each character has their own 'Theory' of how things became the way they are. Each sees a different time or event as being integral in the shaping of their strange family dynamic. As their individual dramas draw them all back to their family home, each learns a bit more about themselves and their siblings.

A beautiful, touching, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny look at today's American family full of love and secrets that everyone will be able to relate to. Read this book!

2 comments:

  1. Sounds interesting. Of course, I'm still trying to find time for the last book you highly recommended to me. :o)

    Peace and Laughter!
    JP

    ReplyDelete
  2. You captured the essential elements of this novel so beautifully.

    ReplyDelete

About Me

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I'm human, so I've got some issues, but all things considered I guess I'm reasonably normal. My parents are still married. My best friends are my sisters...okay, so I'm normal for the 1850's whatever. I'm opinionated and nerdy. I'm walking the line between tweener-style pop culture love (witness my ever-burning New Kids love and inexplicable Twilight obsession) and elitist culture snob (I can't seem to get enough 19th century British Lit and historical biographies) but, after 30 years, I'm finally learning not to give a crap what anyone else thinks about me. Oh, and those are my feet in the picture. The socks were made by a friend.

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