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The World Without You

by Joshua Henkin (Goodreads Author)

3.46 of 5 stars 3.46 · rating details · 1,533 ratings · 374 reviews

***National Jewish Book Awards 2012, Finalist***
JJ Greenberg Memorial Award for Fiction

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Matrimony ["Beautiful . . . Brilliant."—Michael Cunningham], a moving,mesmerizing new novel about love, loss, and the aftermath of a family tragedy.

It’s July 4, 2005, and the Frankel family is descending upon their beloved summer home i...more

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published June 19th 2012 by Pantheon

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The World Without You
by Joshua Henkin (Goodreads Author)

Release date: Apr 09, 2013

It's July 4, 2005, and the Frankel family is descending upon their beloved summer home in the Berkshires. They have gathered to memorialize Leo, the y…more

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Aug 31, 2012 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was written as if the author just liked to read his own writing - like a person who talks just to hear his own voice.

The present-tense narrative was clunky and almost unbearable by the halfway point of the book. "Now" and "then" were overused in the story telling (i.e., "Now she is playing badminton" and "Then they're in Lily's van.") Flat, boring characters with dull dialogue.

Certain items were unrealistic/seem to have missed the editing process:

1)"They're both three, though Calder is...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

I thought Fall was the time when all the terrific books are released. My last three reads have been outstanding and so far this is still another. It's a great Summer to read! I repeat, the books this Summer are outstanding.

This story takes place in three days, over the 4th of July, as a broken .The family is like most, very complicated. Unlike many war stories, this one is concerned more with the people left behind than the fallen writer. It makes us understand how painful the headlines from war...more

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Jun 25, 2012 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 3 of 5 stars

In the Berkshires, during an enervating July Fourth weekend, three generations of Frankels gather together in 2005 for a memorial to their beloved son, brother, and spouse, Leo Frankel, a journalist who was kidnapped and killed in the Iraq War the previous year. As memories of Leo float through the narrative, old resentments and new secrets float to the top like crude oil in a jar of hearts. Henkin didn’t break any new contextual ground here. He was going for the familiar themes of loss, perseve...more In the Berkshires, during an enervating July Fourth weekend, three generations of Frankels gather together in 2005 for a memorial to their beloved son, brother, and spouse, Leo Frankel, a journalist who was kidnapped and killed in the Iraq War the previous year. As memories of Leo float through the narrative, old resentments and new secrets float to the top like crude oil in a jar of hearts. Henkin didn’t break any new contextual ground here. He was going for the familiar themes of loss, perseverance, understanding, love despite all, forgiveness, and redemption within a garden-variety package tied up with some stock twine.

You’ve seen this family before in domestic dramas: the 21st century elite, pedigreed, liberal, secular family with a few black sheep conservatives. Just about all the Ivy League or first tier colleges are represented, and those who didn’t obtain their PhDs or MDs are smarter than the ones who did.

One of the three beautiful daughters, Noelle, seems overtly fabricated. Henkin is trying to convince the reader that Noelle was once a sex-obsessed alley cat who moved to Israel and, par to the characteristic flip side of the personal coin, became an Orthodox Jew, with the support of her American husband, also turned Orthodox Jewish. A portrayal of two extremes in one person is not an unusual profile, and in fact is a prevalent human composition.

However, I was not convinced that first-incarnation Noelle was anything but a free spirit--refreshing and curious, independent and phase-healthy. Her morphing into a compulsive Orthodox, adhering so rigidly that they even bring their own Kosher food from Israel to this weekend, rejecting the Kosher food offered by her parents, was patently unbelievable. Henkin was attempting to show a woman who, at different times, embraced opposite ends of the same continuum. But, I never felt he authenticated second-incarnation Noelle with the antecedent, obsessive traits required to appropriate her inflexible, almost morbid religiosity.

Leo’s parents, Marilyn and David, age 69, plan to announce their impending divorce to the clan. The author was demonstrating the statistically frequent rate of divorce that occurs between couples that have lost a child. But, Leo was not a child—he had a wife and child of his own. And, the elders’ breakup seemed contrived; it wasn’t convincingly organic, but rather a limply constructed story device.

There were other scenes and events that felt hatched rather than natural. It had the mainstream moue of a nighttime series, a repackaged but prosaic, recycled SISTERS BROTHERS-type entertainment.

MINOR SPOILER PARAGRAPH. The biggest stretch was to accept Thisbe’s (the widow) Calvinistic-type altruism in the face of a gift of two-hundred thousand dollars from the obscenely rich matriarch, 94-yr-old Gretchen, mother of David. Gretchen gave this check to Thisbe some time after Leo died, with no overt strings attached. Sure, with Gretchen, there were always Machievellian manipulations. But at 94? How menacing could she really be?? Again, another contrivance that I didn’t believe. And, the struggling grad student Thisbe, raising her and Leo’s son, refusing to cash the check out of issues of guilt, because she had fallen in love again at age thirty-two? She was barely getting by in Berkeley with her new partner. I find it difficult to swallow Thisbe’s altruism, her rationale for refusing help for her and Leo’s son, at least!

Henkin has a way with words--the figurative and aphoristic turn of phrase. These delightful nuggets peppered the story throughout, and provided a prose-rich sum of parts. However, the story itself remained rather bland and predictable. The memorial service, which was the intended highlight of the gathering, was anti-climactic, buttressed largely by the individual tributes. The sentiments weren’t enough to depict the event, except sketchily, and gave the special day a static representation.

The novel, while eloquent at intervals, did not consummately satisfy. Instead, the conventional arc was held together with chiefly reductive portraits and some pithy dialogue. A bit banal, with reflective moments. 3.25

Thank you to Net Galley for providing me an e-copy.(less)

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May 25, 2012 Nadyne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2000-s, e-books, fiction, kindle, literary-fiction, novel, netgalley, read-in-2012, american

First sentence: "'Here', she says, 'I'll get you a sweater.'"

P. 99: ""She's at one baseline with a bucket at her feet, and Clarissa, at the other baseline, also has a bucket."

Last sentence: "Then he's there, her husband, coming down the stairs, his shoes making their syncopated beat, and she's looking up at him, anticipating his voice, waiting to see what comes next.'"

From Amazon: It’s July 4, 2005, and the Frankel family is descending upon their beloved summer home in the Berkshires. But this i...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Elise rated it 4 of 5 stars

A really nice read..... I felt like I knew this family and at times I was part of this family, the Frankels.
The author does such an incredible job narrating this story that takes place
over a long July 4th weekend commemorating the anniversary of the death of their younget sibling, Leo, a journalist killed on assign,et while covering the Iraq war. Leo's unveiling brings together his grieving family gathered to honor his memory.The story begins, as it should, with those who have been dealt the h...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this character study more than I anticipated; even with the incredibly frustrating moments!

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Jul 26, 2012 Maureen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really, really liked this novel. I loved all the family dysfunction and the author did a great job fleshing out the central characters. The ending was a bit odd but not so much that it changed my overall feeling about the book. I know there has been some comparisons to the Daniel Pearl story but I really didn't see it other than the son who was a journalist who was killed in Iraq (although Daniel Pearl was killed in Pakistan, not Iraq)- think those comparisons are overblown. Overall a great, f...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Libsue rated it 5 of 5 stars

Someone vital and important to you has died. Sitting in a room accepting condolences from neighbors, friends and family the world seems so unreal. You're busy with death and the after effects. The shiva calls end or the wake is over and everyone goes home. Looking out the window the world has gone on. Children play games with their friends. Husbands and wives go to work, eat dinner, lay down with one another. But you just sit and wonder how can life go on without the one you love?
One year after...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Linda K. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Joshua Henkin puts readers immediately in the lives of the members of the family in this heartwrenching and yet often humorous novel. If you remember Daniel Pearl, the journalist killed by terrorists, you'll appreciate this book even more. It puts us in present times.

This was the first book I read by Henkin, and I loved it. He is particularly good at character sketches. But what really makes the book in some ways: The attention he pays to even the smallest detail, like funny bumper stickers som...more

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May 12, 2013 Kelly added it

I've spent the last four days deciding between a three or four star rating. I'm still undecided. That being said, what I can offer is that this is a compulsively readable character study. The other reviewers and book description have adequately explained the plot. The strange thing is, I can agree with both reviewers who state the characters are drawn too thin as well as those who found the characters adequately complex. Here's how: I think the reader gets a great sense of who each of the almost...more

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Mar 18, 2013 Alecia rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would give this a 3.5/5 rating. Almost a 4 but I think it is a bit too long and wordy, and it especially drags a bit in the middle. But the writing is very good, and it draws the reader in to the Frankel family.

The year is 2005, one year after Leo Frankel has been murdered while reporting in Iraq. The Frankel family (Leo had 3 sisters) has gathered for his unveiling and a memorial service. Leo's parent's summer home is in Lenox, MA, and this is where the family travels to over this July 4th w...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Sue Seligman rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of realistic fiction, women

Recommended to Sue by: read a review

I really enjoyed reading this very sad, poignant and emotional novel. Leo Frankel, a journalist, has been killed in Iraq on July 4th covering the war during the Bush Administration. A year later his entire family has gathered in the country home in Lenox, Massachusetts for a memorial service. Leo, the youngest of 4 children of David and Marilyn, seemed to serve as the glue that held his family together, even though as an adult he traveled overseas, and lived with his wife and baby in California....more I really enjoyed reading this very sad, poignant and emotional novel. Leo Frankel, a journalist, has been killed in Iraq on July 4th covering the war during the Bush Administration. A year later his entire family has gathered in the country home in Lenox, Massachusetts for a memorial service. Leo, the youngest of 4 children of David and Marilyn, seemed to serve as the glue that held his family together, even though as an adult he traveled overseas, and lived with his wife and baby in California. His death has left a void with his three sisters and his parents that cannot be easily filled. His parents plan to announce after the service that they are splitting up once they return to their home in New York City. The youngest of the three adult daughters has come from Israel with her husband and four small boys to attend the service. She has adopted an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle there, yet it is evident that her "devotion" to this religious life has not completely allowed her to overcome the challenges of being "different" from her sisters. Noelle had been the black sheep of the family, doing poorly in school and spending too much time with the boys, and it wasn't until she settled in Israel that she turned completely around, alienating many with her judgemental opinions. Clarissa is struggling with infertility issues, and Lily is happy with her partner, no intentions of getting married or having children. Leo's widow and 3 year old son arrive from California; Thisbe is wondering how to break the news that she is moving on and finding happiness with another man. Each character is struggling with their own issues, and it seems as if this is yet another story of a dysfunction Jewish family. However, these people are realistically portrayed, and evoke sympathy and empathy from the reader. I totally related in some way to each of the characters in the story. It was a great portrayal of how the untimely death of a member of a family has far reaching effects on the rest, no matter how old or how far they live. I definitely recommend this realistic fiction novel.(less)

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Jan 12, 2013 Carson rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 07, 2013 Becky Haase rated it 2 of 5 stars

THE WORLD WITHOUT YOU by Joshua Henkin

Henkin, as in MATRIMONY his first book, is a wonderful writer. Unfortunately, I don’t know ANY of his characters. But more importantly, I don’t WANT to know them. The father is distant, the mother is self-absorbed. Clarissa, who has turned her back on a career as a cellist, is unhappy with her current life and sure a child – HER child, and only HER child - will complete her world. Lily is angry at everyone for unknown and unknowable reasons. Noelle, a wild c...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Scott rated it 5 of 5 stars

From my conversation with Joshua Henkin, over at Full-Stop and Salon.com:

In The World Without You, Joshua Henkin’s latest novel, the Frankel family comes together one year after the family’s only son, Leo, a journalist, was killed on assignment in Iraq. That death has cast an all-consuming shadow on the family: siblings, marriages, and grandchildren are troubled; Mom and Dad are breaking up after forty years; and Leo’s widow is moving on. This is Henkin’s third novel to remind us that literature...more From my conversation with Joshua Henkin, over at Full-Stop and Salon.com:

In The World Without You, Joshua Henkin’s latest novel, the Frankel family comes together one year after the family’s only son, Leo, a journalist, was killed on assignment in Iraq. That death has cast an all-consuming shadow on the family: siblings, marriages, and grandchildren are troubled; Mom and Dad are breaking up after forty years; and Leo’s widow is moving on. This is Henkin’s third novel to remind us that literature can be thoughtful, intelligent, and also wildly entertaining.

Henkin directs the MFA program at Brooklyn College and also happens to be a true gentleman: we met at a café in Park Slope where, at first, he sort of interviewed me, asking where I was from, how I grew up, and how did I like my coffee? This would have gone on, I think, for the remainder of our conversation if I hadn’t remembered we were actually there to talk about him. And so we went on to talk about King Lear, character and the family drama, MFAs, and why “show, don’t tell” is mostly bullshit.

---

Scott Cheshire: I want to start with something of a problematic question because I think there is a certain type of reader who will ask it. And that is: does serious literary fiction need another family drama?

Joshua Henkin: To be honest, it’s a question that’s hard to take seriously. I mean, think of Flaubert, of Tolstoy. Is every work of great literature a family drama? No. But are many — perhaps even most — family dramas? I think so. We’re born into families. Lots of us create families. And, yes, we live public lives but we also have private lives. And fiction is singularly suited to the private life, the internal. I think there is probably an anxiety of influence there, too. Some writers get worried, thinking that every story has already been told. You know a teacher of mine once said there are only two kinds of stories: a stranger comes to town, or a person goes on a trip. Which are really the same story but from different perspectives. So really there’s only one story. But I’m not perturbed by that, because every story is different if it’s told well. Look at King Lear, which, if crudely summarized, is basically a clichéd plot — a family drama in which the father has to decide which of his daughters gets the money. But it doesn’t matter if the story has been told. It’s all about how it’s done.

SC: Come to think of it, even the Hebrew Bible is basically all family drama.

JH: Absolutely. And actually I think it’s the anxiety about your first question that leads to a lot of bad literature. I see among my students and out there, in general, some really talented writers who are so worried about being original that they dress up their books in pyrotechnics and they do all these wacky things just be sure the work is different — but the way in which it’s different is not interesting or even organic. If people would just chill out and live with their characters and tell a story, then if it’s good it will be remembered, and if it’s bad, it won’t...

For the rest of our conversation: http://www.salon.com/writer/scott_che...(less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Miriam Downey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Read my full review here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.c...

I read an article recently about people who divorce in their later years. The Wall Street Journal called it “Grey Divorce.” The article said that the more than 600,000 people over the age of 50 divorce every year. For many there is the feeling that “I have to fulfill myself now or I never will.” One researcher calls the reason for grey divorces “complex marital biographies.”

Marilyn and David Frankel in the novel The World without...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Tracy rated it 3 of 5 stars

More literary that most of what I've been reading, this novel follows July 4th weekend of the Frankel family where they gather at the one-year mark following Leo's death. Present are: Leo's parents (David and Marilyn, on the verge of announcing a separation after 42 years of marriage); Leo's sisters (Clarissa, who is desperate to get pregnant at age 39 after years of not wanting a child; Noelle, a formerly very promiscuous and troubled teen who now lives in Israel as a strict Orthodox Jew with h...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Virginia Campbell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

As Marilyn and David Frankel prepare for their annual Fourth of July family get-together at their Summer home in the Berkshires, they realize that this reunion will be both an ending and a beginning. Their son, Leo, a journalist, was killed while on an assignment in Iraq. The family gathering this year is to include a special memorial service for the lost son, and behind the scenes, the decades-long Frankel marriage has unraveled. How to inform their three daughters and the other family members...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Some books are all about plot, some are more character studies. Joshua Henkin's novel, The World Without You falls in the latter category.

The Frankel family, father David and mother Marilyn, are preparing for the arrival of their three daughters, Lily, Clarissa and Noelle, along with their spouses and children, and their daughter-in-law Thisbe with her young son for a memorial service for their son Leo, a journalist murdered last year covering the Iraq War.

The story revolves around how Leo's dea...more Some books are all about plot, some are more character studies. Joshua Henkin's novel, The World Without You falls in the latter category.

The Frankel family, father David and mother Marilyn, are preparing for the arrival of their three daughters, Lily, Clarissa and Noelle, along with their spouses and children, and their daughter-in-law Thisbe with her young son for a memorial service for their son Leo, a journalist murdered last year covering the Iraq War.

The story revolves around how Leo's death has affected the family. Marilyn, a doctor, turned outward; she consistently wrote op-ed pieces for newspapers against the war and worked on John Kerry's presidential campaign. David turned inward, taking up running to deal with his loss.

Marilyn decides that it is too painful to stay married to David and asks him for a divorce; he is devastated by the request. Marilyn intends to tell the family while they are visiting for the memorial, and they are completely blindsided by this announcement.

Henkin makes this characters so real that reading this novel felt like I was eavesdropping on this family during a particularly tough time. They are complicated people, who make mistakes and love and fight and misunderstand and are misunderstood; you know, just like your own family.

"Noelle is her sister, but the fact is they can't stand each other, and when Lily feels uncomfortable she goes for high drama; histrionics is her point at rest."
After a wild, promiscuous adolescence, Noelle moved to Israel, married and became an Orthodox Jew, closely following all rules. She felt that "she was peeling layers of herself, molting an identity she had wanted to molt for years and hadn't realized she was capable of molting."

Clarissa "didn't say a word until she turned three, at which point she began to speak in full sentences. She suspects the story is exaggerated, but it gets at an essential truth about her." Lily "throws herself into things, whereas (Clarissa's) a watcher, she's cautious, she's a student first and she doesn't like to make mistakes."

Henkin's describes his characters as they see themselves and as they are seen by the people who knew them best- their siblings. Anyone with siblings will get that right away.

Thisbe describes what it's like to be a widow:
"Everyone, she thinks, wants to know about the milestones- Leo's birthday, their anniversary- those are hard, of course, but it's the everyday things that are the toughest. When she used to shop for groceries, she would get this cereal Leo liked, Great Grains Raisins, Dates and Pecans, and she mustn't have been thinking because a couple of months she ended up with a box in her shopping cart."
Describing what's it's like to become part of the Frankels, Thisbe says:
"That's one of the things that appealed to me about Leo- the tumult of you Frankels, as if in your presence I am being swallowed by a many-tentacled beast and made into a tentacle myself. Clarissa, Lily and Noelle- you were older by the time I came along, but I still felt that in marrying Leo I was getting you as sisters and when he died, I lost you too. I know that losing a husband is different from losing a sibling, and it's especially different from losing a son."
That paragraph states the theme of this beautiful, insightful novel- loss is different for everyone, and in The World Without You, we see how parents, siblings and spouses deal with that loss and the life that goes on.
(less)

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Aug 04, 2012 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, family, grief, war, death, marriage

Three generations of the Frankel family have come together at their Berkshire vacation home. Leo, the youngest sibling, was tragically killed one year ago, while on a journalist assignment in Iraq. The family has come to hold a memorial in Leo’s honor, and to attempt a proper family reunion.

Marilyn and David have been married for over forty years. But, the death of their son has placed strain on their relationship, and they struggle with how to maintain normalcy. Marilyn became involved in polit...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Bonnie Brody added it

For the first time in one year, since the death of their son and sibling, Leo, the Frankel family has gotten together for a reunion. Leo, who was killed in Afghanistan one year ago was a journalist and op-ed writer on duty when he was murdered. Ironically, the date of his death was July 4th. The Frankels have a summer home in the Berkshires and the whole family has traveled there from all over the world.

With them they bring their families and their secrets. The parents, Marilyn and David, after...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Robbins Library rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: jenny-recommends

"To me, closure is the most detestable word in the English language. It's what other people say to you when they think it's time to move on."

The World Without You is a story about a family on the one-year anniversary of the youngest child's death: Leo, the youngest of four siblings and the only boy, was a journalist who died in Iraq. A year later, his parents are on the verge of splitting up; his oldest sister is trying to get pregnant; his thirty-three-year-old widow has a new relationship she'...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Jo Anne B rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was very well written. It is a shame that I just didn't like any of the characters or bond with the story. You would think it would be easy to feel sorry for this family having lost Leo in the Iraq war. But Leo's character was never really portrayed. We only got a sense of who he was in a few memories which centered around his siblings. I thought that the family members were so self-centered. It was a mess of a family for sure. They were all so different and cold to each other they did...more

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Jul 12, 2012 John Luiz rated it 5 of 5 stars

I just finished reading Mark Haddon's Red House about an extended family who gets together at a summer house after a family member's death, and I must say Joshua Henkin's novel offers a far more entertaining and insightful read on a similar vein, and it's also free of the annoying writerly tricks Haddon overused. This book just relies on good storytelling to show how a mother and three sisters and the wife are dealing with the loss of Leo, their son/brother/husband, who, like Daniel Pearl, becam...more I just finished reading Mark Haddon's Red House about an extended family who gets together at a summer house after a family member's death, and I must say Joshua Henkin's novel offers a far more entertaining and insightful read on a similar vein, and it's also free of the annoying writerly tricks Haddon overused. This book just relies on good storytelling to show how a mother and three sisters and the wife are dealing with the loss of Leo, their son/brother/husband, who, like Daniel Pearl, became a celebrated journalist who was kidnapped and killed (although here it's in Iraq, not Pakistan). Henkin does a marvelous job at showing how each is dealing with their grief, complicated by the ongoing troubles in their lives. The mother is thinking about leaving her husband, the wife is afraid to tell her late husband's family that in the year since her husband died she met and fell in love with another man. The daughters have a whole set of their own problems. One is struggling to have a baby. Another, in perhaps the most intriguing storyline, moved to Israel and became an Orthodox Jewish after spending her teenage years as wild and promiscuous. Henkin has lots of balls to balance and he does the juggling act amazingly well, as he keeps the story lines intriguing around the centering event of them all gathering at the family's home in the Berkshires on the 4th of July for a memorial celebration on the 1-year anniversary of Leo's death. My only minor quibble with the story is that the points of view only shifts between the women - the mother, wife, and three sisters. I would have especially liked to have gone inside the head of the father especially, who feels his son's loss just as strongly as the others and is deeply hurt by his wife's desire to leave him because of the tension that stemmed from their different ways of grieving. Fortunately, his perspective gets conveyed through his interactions with his wife and daughters. It's a great novel with a great sense of place - offering detailed descriptions of the Berkshires as the setting for this family reunion. (less)

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Jun 22, 2012 Beatnik Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/...

The World Without You is the story of a family struggling to come together--physically and emotionally--one year after the loss of the youngest sibling, Leo, a journalist killed in Iraq in 2004. As the family gathers for the July 4th holiday in their vacation home in the Berkshires, it becomes clear that the loss of their son and brother is not the only fracture in their relationships. The parents' marriage is crumbling, the eldest sister is so focused on...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Tina rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Blurb:
It's July 4th, 2005, and the Frankel family is descending upon their beloved summer home in the Berkshires. But this is no ordinary holiday: the family is gathering for a memorial. Leo, the youngest of the four Frankel siblings and an intrepid journalist and adventurer, was killed one year ago while on assignment in Iraq. His parents, Marilyn and David, are adrift in grief, and it's tearing apart their forty-year marriage. Clarissa, the eldest, is struggling at thirty-nine with inferti...more The Blurb:
It's July 4th, 2005, and the Frankel family is descending upon their beloved summer home in the Berkshires. But this is no ordinary holiday: the family is gathering for a memorial. Leo, the youngest of the four Frankel siblings and an intrepid journalist and adventurer, was killed one year ago while on assignment in Iraq. His parents, Marilyn and David, are adrift in grief, and it's tearing apart their forty-year marriage. Clarissa, the eldest, is struggling at thirty-nine with infertility. Lily, a fiery-tempered lawyer, is angry about everything. Noelle, a born-again Orthodox Jew (and the last person to see Leo alive), has come in from Israel with her husband and four children and feels entirely out of place. And Thisbe--Leo's widow and mother of their three-year-old son--has arrived from California bearing her own secret. Over the course of three days, the Frankels will contend with sibling rivalries and marital feuds, volatile women and silent men, and, ultimately, with the true meaning of family.

What I thought:

This one could have been a dreary, dragging soap-opera of a story. Instead Joshua Henkin has given us an engrossing character study of a family torn apart by grief. As the individuals come back to the scene of some of their happiest times together, they can't seem to let go of the unhappiness each one feels at losing their brother, husband, son. Instead of reaching out to others for support, they seem to want to play the "my grief is worse than yours" game, and continue to pile their melancholy and inability to cope on each other. At first I was angry at being subjected to all this grief, but then I began to see each person as an individual, and Henkin gives us wonderful back stories to allow us into the minds, hearts, and grievings of each member of the family, and helps us to see all the interactions, hopes and dreams of yesterday as well as the disappointments and unmet expectations of today as we stumble through the three days with each family member.

When I finished I did wish the ending had been more crisp, but then realized that the author intended this to be as close to real life as possible, leaving his characters with some hope, some dread, some dreams, and at least the opportunity to work through the sorrow to a better future.

Author: Joshua Henkin
Publisher-Format: Pantheon, e galley, 283 pages
Year of publication: 2012
Subject: Grief, family dynamics
Setting: Vacation home in the Berkshires
Genre: fiction
Source: publisher via Net Galley(less)

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May 16, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

I would really like to give this book four and a HALF stars, but alas, that is not an option on Goodreads. So I rounded up.

The World Without You by Joshua Henkin is a novel about a big family coping with the death of a son and brother, one year after the tragedy. The novel is mostly dialogue (excellent dialogue). It contains many miniscule details (for example, washing the dishes details) that are at once amazing and irritating, but always impressive.

I like details, but they can wear on some re...more I would really like to give this book four and a HALF stars, but alas, that is not an option on Goodreads. So I rounded up.

The World Without You by Joshua Henkin is a novel about a big family coping with the death of a son and brother, one year after the tragedy. The novel is mostly dialogue (excellent dialogue). It contains many miniscule details (for example, washing the dishes details) that are at once amazing and irritating, but always impressive.

I like details, but they can wear on some readers (or so my ex-agent once told me, when she explained why I'd written "an award winning novel" that she wasn't even going to try to sell. This novel still lives on a thumb drive).

The details and the dialogue and the lack of serious action in The World Without You make this book clearly "literary." Enjoy the novel for its characters and the poignancy of their respective dilemmas. The novel is at once timeless and a wonderful reflection of a certain point in time (the inexplicable re-election of George W. Bush; the senseless deaths of innocents caused by the Iraq war).

From the standpoint of a fiction writer, one MUST read Henkin's newest novel for its amazing characterization and dialogue. It's like Anne Tyler, but amplified. (Anne Tyler never disappoints.) If you're trying to teach writing students what is meant by "round" characters, THIS is what is meant.

I did not love all the characters in the novel, but that's okay, because I was still interested in them, and I still wanted to try to understand them. I could not always picture the characters, but that is okay, because I can use my imagination.

What I did not have to imagine, what I could really feel, was the way each character was lost in past memories while dealing with the current demands of life. The omniscient POV here was very impressive.

I am an only child, but I could understand the complex dynamics of a family holed up together in a country house. There was an intentional stagnant quality to their being almost trapped together in this house, awaiting a memorial service for the dead son/brother. This is a universal feeling that anyone who has parents and/or siblings (and in-laws) can relate to.

Joshua Henkin does a masterful job capturing life and turning it into art. This novel feels very real, and it will leave you thinking and reminiscing long after you turn the last page.(less)

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Apr 16, 2012 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars

(this is adapted from my blog post)

It was funny reading this book back-to-back with Sweet Talk by Stephanie Vaughn, a book I know Joshua Henkin loves, because they are so incredibly different. Among the many aspects of Sweet Talk I admired were Vaughn’s carefully-crafted sentences and her wit. Most of the books I love, I love for these elements.

Joshua Henkin’s book, The World Without You, I loved for very different reasons. This is a book where the sentences–the craft of writing–disappear. I had...more (this is adapted from my blog post)

It was funny reading this book back-to-back with Sweet Talk by Stephanie Vaughn, a book I know Joshua Henkin loves, because they are so incredibly different. Among the many aspects of Sweet Talk I admired were Vaughn’s carefully-crafted sentences and her wit. Most of the books I love, I love for these elements.

Joshua Henkin’s book, The World Without You, I loved for very different reasons. This is a book where the sentences–the craft of writing–disappear. I had trouble picking out moments when the point of view in the book shifted from character to character, let alone picking out a stand-out sentence. The writing is almost invisible here. Is this a good thing?

Absolutely! Here’s what it does: it transports the reader. I read this book, which is not small, in record time. It is a book I sat up late with and picked up before work in the morning. I spent the better part of last weekend on the couch with this book, but although I was on a couch in Queens, I felt like I was in a vacation house in the Berkshires over the 4th of July, getting ready for a memorial service for my journalist brother/husband/son who’d been killed in Iraq. I was immersed. Josh’s writing disappears so that the experience is seamless–you open his book and you suddenly aren’t you anymore. You’re in his world. Tricky word play would pull the reader right out and despite the sadness pervasive in this book, I’ll bet that when you read it you’d rather be in than out.

The dead journalist, Leo, came from an UWS family, his parents’ last child, born after three older sisters. The reader gets to know each of these sisters, as well as the parents and Leo’s widow, Thisbe. The characters I felt commanded the bulk of the attention in the novel were Thisbe and the youngest of the sisters, Noelle. She was the character who most fascinated me: a former wild-child who struggled in school, partly because of a late-diagnosed special need, and whose promiscuous behavior necessitated the family’s relocation to the suburbs for the kids’ teenagerhood. In a development that surprised everyone, herself included, Noelle moved to Israel in her twenties, became an Orthodox Jew, married and had four small boys. Getting to know Noelle was a privilege–what a strange, complicated girl. Seen through her eyes, as well as the eyes of her sisters and her sister-in-law, the picture was both complicated and clarified.

That is one of the delicious aspects of this book–the reader alone is privy to both what is in each of the characters’ heads and hearts as well as what they think of, and say about, each other. The reader becomes the one trusted confident in a tense household of people who love each other and yet withhold their full selves.

The magical construction of this book–how did the points of view shift so often, without being confusing, often mid-chapter?–impressed me, as did Josh’s incredible imagination. This isn’t fight-to-the-death, wizards and sparkly vampire sort of imagination (do I sound old and grumpy with that? also can you tell I haven’t read any of those books?), but it is imagination that creates whole worlds nonetheless. Each character in the novel–and there are many–had a fully realized past, present and in some cases, future. I guarantee that if you asked Josh to recount each sisters’ high school report card, he could do it–he’d know what each girl was best at, he’d also know where she’d have sat in a room if she had a choice, who she dated, what kinds of other girls she was friends with and probably what she loved to eat for snack. The details all mattered–these were real people to me as I was reading about them. So real that their small dramas mattered to me like my friends’ dramas do, or even like my own do. There was a big, important, political and tragic death at the heart of this novel, but orbiting it were many medium-sized tragedies (infertility, divorce) and tiny ones, too (bonding moments thwarted, feelings hurt).

There’s a real treat on the last page of this novel, which I won’t give away, but it is a leap that felt like a gift from Josh to his readers, many of whom, like me, were (will be!) probably very sorry to finish his book. It was a gift that let me imagine that these characters didn’t finish living when I finished reading them, but continue on, somewhere in the world.(less)

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Apr 09, 2012 Jennifer Jensen rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the signs of a good book, to me, is the idea that I care about the characters. I normally read Christian fiction and non-fiction, although I have long been a Stephen King fan, and I am unapologetically a Christian. So, when I found myself wanting to share the hope and joy that these characters could find in Christ, I knew that their pain was coming through loud and clear, which meant, by my standards, this was a good book.

The story is one of significant sorrow, of the breaches that develo...more One of the signs of a good book, to me, is the idea that I care about the characters. I normally read Christian fiction and non-fiction, although I have long been a Stephen King fan, and I am unapologetically a Christian. So, when I found myself wanting to share the hope and joy that these characters could find in Christ, I knew that their pain was coming through loud and clear, which meant, by my standards, this was a good book.

The story is one of significant sorrow, of the breaches that develop in families over the long and short term, and the ways in which those we are most closely related to find us the most repulsive. As the Frankel family reconvenes to memorialize, after one year, the youngest sibling of the family, they each bring their own brand of tragedy to the Berkshires with them. All have been affected, all have been changed, and all are trying to come to terms with the idea of living without Leo in their respective worlds.

Joshua writes this story as though he were a journalist, recording the events as though they were happening right in front of him, being real and honest about the intensity that is family, whether at war or at peace. If you have ever had someone you are related to stomp out of the house in the middle of a game of charades, or been overwhelmed with the idea of spending an afternoon with your sibling in a car, or thought that your every word was being scrutinized by your super smart brother in law, or wondered if your parents truly liked your spouse, you will certainly find no shortage of persons to relate to in Joshua’s book. I don’t know that I liked all of them, but I definitely recognized them. This is a book where the story is defined by how well you recognize these people, because if you don’t you won’t see the raw hurt for what it is. Once you see them, you will see yourself, and once you do that, you will be moved.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255
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Mar 27, 2012 Patty rated it 5 of 5 stars

The World Without You
By
Joshua Henkin

Summary...

A family comes together to their summer home for their son Leo's memorial.

My Thoughts...

This is a beautiful lyrical soulful book. I want to both love and run away from this family. Some of them I wanted to hug and others I wanted to shake. The only person I felt real sympathy for was David...the father. Marilyn...the mother...OMG...a mess after her son Leo' death. Everyone else was flawed and irritating. I say irritating but it was the kind of irrita...more

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About Joshua Henkin

Joshua Henkin's first novel, SWIMMING ACROSS THE HUDSON, was a Los Angeles Times Notable Book, and his second novel, MATRIMONY, was a NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK and has recently been released in paperback. His short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches in the MFA programs at Sarah Lawrence College and Brooklyn College

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