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310th out of 1,230 books
—
6,544 voters
The Condition
by
Jennifer Haigh (Goodreads Author)
The Condition tells the story of the McKotches, a proper New England family that comes apart during one fateful summer. The year is 1976, and the family, Frank McKotch, an eminent scientist; his pedigreed wife, Paulette; and their three beautiful children has embarked on its annual vacation at the Captain's House, the grand old family retreat on Cape Cod. One day on the be...more
Hardcover, 400 pages
Published
July 1st 2008
by Harper
(first published January 1st 2008)
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This novel is really wonderful in the same way that Pink Floyd is really wonderful... but you know how if you listen to Pink Floyd alone on a cloudy day, you'll spiral into a bone-chillingly real, suicidal depression? All the while consciously maintaining that it's fantastically beautiful music, and knowing somewhere deep down inside from the blackest of your darkness that you'd be completely fine if you'd just listened to Supertramp instead?
That's a powerful phenomenon, and you should respect i...more
That's a powerful phenomenon, and you should respect i...more
56 likes · like · see review
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What a great read! This novel was a perfect family drama to get absorbed in. It's the story of the McKotch family, who tend to keep everything bottled up and simultaneously get upset when the others don't understand them. It is written in 3rd person, and each chapter covers the events/thoughts of a different character. The writing was perfect- not too wordy while beautifully conveying exactly how each person felt. Prudish, smothering mother, Paulette and the scientist/workaholic father, Frank ra...more
Jennifer Haigh is a wonderful, intelligent storyteller. I really enjoyed "Mrs. Kimble" and "Baker Towers," and was no less enthralled with "The Condition." Her characters are beautifully drawn and incredibly human.
The title suggests that the book is about a single "condition," but there are as many "conditions" in the novel as there are characters. Ultimately, I feel the title refers to the "human condition," the need to be needed and the need to understand the world in which we live.
The title suggests that the book is about a single "condition," but there are as many "conditions" in the novel as there are characters. Ultimately, I feel the title refers to the "human condition," the need to be needed and the need to understand the world in which we live.
12 likes · like · see review
This book involves a young girl (and her family) who is diagnosed with a condition called Turner’s Syndrome, which prevents her body from ever maturing into or beyond puberty. When I started reading this, I did so with the notion that girl with Turner’s was the center of the book, and that the rest of the story focused on how her family dealt with (or failed to deal with) her condition.
In some ways, I was right. In actuality, though, the book is not really about the condition of Turner’s Syndrom...more
In some ways, I was right. In actuality, though, the book is not really about the condition of Turner’s Syndrom...more
I love all Jennifer Haigh's books. This one is a little different from my all-time favorite--Baker's Towers. Less emphasis on class divisions and working class lifeways but still a strong focus on intergenerational strife and the unfolding of a family's history over the decades. In this case it's a wealthy New England family's unmaking that Haigh focuses on spanning the 70s through the 90s. We gain access to all the voices of the McKotches -parents (Frank the geneticist and Paulette who remains...more
What a beautiful book. I can't say enough good things about it and when I say "I can't," I mean " I don't have time." But I'm thinking lots of really good things about it and words like "moving," "intelligent," "honest to the bone," "brilliantly constructed," "characters you can believe in (with apologies to Barack,) and "I didn't want it to end," all figure in my thoughts.
Read this book.
Read this book.
5 likes · like · see review
I've come to count Jennifer Haigh as an author whose next work I look forward to reading. I enjoyed both MRS. KIMBLE and BAKER TOWERS for the same reason: They both feature a compelling ensemble of characters. Here too, with THE CONDITION, Haigh has shown her strength. However, the book is less about the condition to which the title refers--Turner's Syndrome, afflicting one of the main characters--and more about some really fascinating family dynamics. A good book group choice, for sure. Plenty...more
A very touching novel, written with graceful and articulate prose. 'The Condition' is not so much about the literal condition (Turners Syndrome), but about a Family and about change and growth; the passing of time and the effects it has on an individual and on a family. Haigh successfully interweaves the characters, all of whom are dynamic and believable. I read this novel in two days -- it was almost impossible to put down. My only criticism is how Haigh neatly wraps up the ending.
I really loved this book! The story is told from the perspective of many characters in the McKotch Family, which reminded me of another book I enjoyed Three Junes....their flaws and shortcomings come out and yet you still enjoy them and root for them. The ending was very satisfying. I'd like to read her other books. Thanks to Eliza for recommending this book!
3 likes · like · see review
This book is a good second best to The Corrections or "Six Feet Under"- a family drama, told in turn from each of the five member's perspective, complete with a gay son, a daughter with Turner's syndrome, a son with ADHD, an overbearing mom, and absent scientific father.
At first I thought it was going to be a cliche of heterosexuality - the book starts from the mom's perspective obsessing about whether or not her husband loves her, finds her attractive, is having affairs with younger and more b...more
At first I thought it was going to be a cliche of heterosexuality - the book starts from the mom's perspective obsessing about whether or not her husband loves her, finds her attractive, is having affairs with younger and more b...more
From the author of Baker Towers and Mrs. Kimble, Jennifer Haigh, comes her long-awaited new novel, The Condition. Set in and around Massachusetts, The Condition tells the story of a family that is torn apart by a daughter’s medical condition. Or rather that is merely the crutch everyone uses to blame their dysfunctional situation.
The story opens in 1976 when the McKotch family makes heads to Cape Cod and the familial retreat. Paulette, Frank, and their three children—Billy, Gwen, and Scott—are j...more
The story opens in 1976 when the McKotch family makes heads to Cape Cod and the familial retreat. Paulette, Frank, and their three children—Billy, Gwen, and Scott—are j...more
Since her first novel Mrs. Kimble, I’ve enjoyed Jennifer Haigh’s work. Her third novel, The Condition, is another very fast, interesting and thought provoking read. Told from the perspective of all five members of the McKotch family, it centers around the family relationships once the middle child, Gwen, is diagnosed with Turner’s Syndrome (a condition in which a girl does not go through puberty, her physical body staying trapped in a 13 year old body). Haigh captures the plight of each family m...more
I wanted to love this book because I love Jennifer Haigh. What an amazingly talented author! I watch for her new books and got The Condition right away. I think that, as a whole, the story is very satisfying and I enjoyed the ending. I almost gave up on it, though. There's about 100 pages of backstory, which I suppose is important to getting the end, but I got tired of reading all this authorial explanation. I liked the scenes, which were prominent in the very beginning and at the end, much more...more
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a fascinating look at a family of flawed, but good people and the effect they have on each other's lives. Particularly powerful is the Mother who is perhaps the most flawed of all. Though well-meaning her issues are so great that the impact on the family is near-devastating. Yet you find yourself not hating her or angry at her, (unlike the mother in August:Osage County) but rather wishing you could sit her down and give her a good talking to and make her unde...more
The "condition" in the title is daughter Gwen's Turner's Syndrome, but the whole novel is really about the condition, individually and collectively, of the entire McKotch family, Paulette (mom), Frank (dad), Billy (the oldest), Scott (the youngest), and, of course, Gwen. I really liked how Haigh lets you see the characters from both their own and other's perspectives...you think you know them, but you don't get the full picture until they begin to tell their stories from their own perpectives. O...more
The Condition the title refers to is Turner's syndrome. A condition in which young girls never go through puberty,leaving them women, locked in girls bodies. The story can be summed up by one wonderful paragraph very late in the novel:
"She no longer wonders what is normal,whether she feels correctly. It is impossible to say.Her whole life she's known that her condition is untreatable. Now she understands that it requires no treatment. The difference is vast;you could fit a whole life in the gulf...more
"She no longer wonders what is normal,whether she feels correctly. It is impossible to say.Her whole life she's known that her condition is untreatable. Now she understands that it requires no treatment. The difference is vast;you could fit a whole life in the gulf...more
Finally-- a new author to add to my list of favorites after a long winter full of mediocre books. This book grabbed me on the first page. Every character in the featured family was likeable despite their flaws. This is how I view families in my work as a psychotherapist. The book illustrates how we can all be misunderstood despite our good intentions. It looks at the ache within all of us to be loved and approved of and the actions (good and bad) that we take to achieve this. I LOVED this book a...more
3.5 actually. Worth a read if you like family dramas. Each character has their own story and the author has the ability to make them sympathetic and frustrating at the same time.
The story revolves around a family in the decades following the discovery that their daughter has Turner's syndrome. This means she will never go through puberty, and be able to have children, she is forever suspended in time as a child. It isn't just her condition that plagues them, but each deals with a condition of th...more
The story revolves around a family in the decades following the discovery that their daughter has Turner's syndrome. This means she will never go through puberty, and be able to have children, she is forever suspended in time as a child. It isn't just her condition that plagues them, but each deals with a condition of th...more
The basis of The Condition is Gwen’s actual condition — a chromosomal abnormality called Tuner Syndrome, which means she will never go through puberty and will forever be stuck in the body of an eleven-year-old child — but the real story is that the condition of her family post-diagnosis. The marriage of her parents, Frank and Paulette, disintegrates following her father’s observation, but their marriage was long on the rocks before that fateful day on Cape Cod. Her younger brother, Scott, runs...more
I'd been struggling through a different novel for a week, only able to read a chapter or two a day; I didn't like the characters, couldn't remember what was going on each time I picked it up so I'd have to go back and re-read a couple pages, meh. So yesterday I started reading The Condition instead, and I absolutely loved everything about it immediately - the writing, the story, especially all the characters. I just felt enveloped by it all, sucked up in it, completely absorbed.
I was really app...more
I was really app...more
It took "the condition" of Gwen McKotch to tear apart the entire McKotch family. Oddly enough, it was also "the condition" that put the family back together again. When Frank McKotch notices the physical growth differences between his thirteen year old daughter and her younger cousin, he knows something is drastically wrong. His scientific research is on high alert. Gwen's mother fights him all the way on doctor visits, possible treatments and doesn't want to face the reality that Turner's syndr...more
My reflections after reading “the condition” by Jennifer Haigh
Many reminders of Connecticut and the Sheridan Farm.
Gatherings rife with alcohol, laughter and many people.
The author reflects “how else are people related supposed to manage being together all summer?”
Feeling I should feel connected.
Watching, always watching, but never feeling a part of the gatherings. Thinking that others were connected.
Never looking beneath the illusion to touch the reality underneath.
People merely wrestling...more
Many reminders of Connecticut and the Sheridan Farm.
Gatherings rife with alcohol, laughter and many people.
The author reflects “how else are people related supposed to manage being together all summer?”
Feeling I should feel connected.
Watching, always watching, but never feeling a part of the gatherings. Thinking that others were connected.
Never looking beneath the illusion to touch the reality underneath.
People merely wrestling...more
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A beautifully written book about the most unlikeable characters I have come across in a long time. Unlikeable characters are often necessary but honestly, I could not relate to a single character in this book (outside of the fact that I live on the Cape and understand the deeply Yankee sensibilities of Paulette). I wanted to like Gwen - who I thought would be the protagonist - but I was very disappointed that the book had very little to do with her, and did almost nothing to explain why she was...more
I don't want to piss off a whole region of the country, but The Condition is a book of east coast sensibilities. It's about a New England family and their constant complaining about nearly every aspect of life. The book is pretty much bereft of likeable characters.
The whining and complaining of the characters in this book is nonstop from start to finish. Just off the top of my head, two random, silly examples for you:
1. The father complains that boy's bikes have that bar in the middle, and
2. The...more
The whining and complaining of the characters in this book is nonstop from start to finish. Just off the top of my head, two random, silly examples for you:
1. The father complains that boy's bikes have that bar in the middle, and
2. The...more
A very satisfying read.
I love the siblings character development, and how they aren't all three equally close, which is how it works in families.
The father is fully developed and I became very fond of him, though I don't believe his choice at the end of the book is realistic for him.
The mom vacillated for me between quirky and annoying. Not a likeable person for me on any level.
Something that stands out is the dialogue throughout where the author uses a characters thoughts to speak, sometimes r...more
I love the siblings character development, and how they aren't all three equally close, which is how it works in families.
The father is fully developed and I became very fond of him, though I don't believe his choice at the end of the book is realistic for him.
The mom vacillated for me between quirky and annoying. Not a likeable person for me on any level.
Something that stands out is the dialogue throughout where the author uses a characters thoughts to speak, sometimes r...more
The flap copy states that the core event in the book is Gwen’s “condition,” but I did not really get that from reading the book. Her medical condition is one of several conditions addressed in the book, emotional conditions, maybe the “human condition.” This is a domestic novel, a multigenerational portrait of a family, focusing on the period between 1976 when we first meet them, summering in The Captain’s House in Cape Cod, and concluding in 1998, by which time the issues raised have come to fr...more
The key character in this story has "Turners Syndrome" which is apparently a condition that stunts physical growth. I could really relate to her pain as she watched all her girlfriends develop and grow and wondered and worried about her own development. I was a late bloomer myself back in the days before chicken was stuffed full of hormones causing all our girls to sprout breasts at the tender age of 10. I think there was a character in John Irving's "Hotel New Hampshire" who had the same condit...more
Just seeing a book by Jennifer Haigh gives me the chills -- in a good way! I fell in love with her after reading Mrs. Kimble (2003) and I've been hooked since.
The premise of The Condition centers on the McKotch family and how they deal with the fact that daughter Gwen has Turner's syndrome, a genetic illness that prevents her body from maturing past pre-teenhood. The novel is apparently about how Gwen's illness affects her two brothers and her parents throughout their lives, but what The Conditi...more
The premise of The Condition centers on the McKotch family and how they deal with the fact that daughter Gwen has Turner's syndrome, a genetic illness that prevents her body from maturing past pre-teenhood. The novel is apparently about how Gwen's illness affects her two brothers and her parents throughout their lives, but what The Conditi...more
I was disappointed in this book. In fact, I never finished it. This book is about a young girl that discovers while on a family vacation that she is smaller than her cousin who is the same age. The family is perplexed as they realize that she actually looks the same as she did a couple of years ago. After a trip to the doctors office it is confirmed that she does in fact have a form of dwarfism.
I was under the impression that the book would follow her life and how she was able to get through thi...more
I was under the impression that the book would follow her life and how she was able to get through thi...more
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Though the novel's title takes its cue from science and medicine, Haigh uses her sprawling family story plot to explore a wide variety of issues facing the 'everyman': the prospect of missing one's dream and waking up one morning to realize that all the doors are closed behind you; the inevitability of aging and the problem of increased hunger for affection at a time when one is least likely to get it; the ways in which we treat other people as a foil for our own selfishness and need for attenti...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| The Condition | 5 | 84 | May 16, 2012 04:44pm |
Jennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer. Her most recent novel, FAITH (HarperCollins, 2010), tells the story of a beloved Boston priest accused of a molesting a child. Her previous novels include the New York Times bestsellers THE CONDITION and BAKER TOWERS, winner of the 2006 PEN/L. L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author. Her critically acclaimed debut...more
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“It was a lesson most people learned much earlier; that even friendship could have an undisclosed shelf life. That loyalty and affection, so consuming and powerful, could dissipate like fog.”
—
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“It was the oldest friends who mattered most. With each passing year, Paulette realized this more deeply. She thought of her borther Roy, retired to Arizona, to golf with other men who were also - she loathed the expression - senior citizens. Roy had arrived in Phoenix with an entire life behind him, a career, a marriage; to his new friends he'd always be old.”
—
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