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The World Without You
by Joshua Henkin (Goodreads Author)
by Joshua Henkin (Goodreads Author)
This is a "bigger" book than Henkin's earlier novel, Matrimony, which I also enjoyed but did not feel had the same weight. It is a family book in the way of The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass, The Red House by Mark Haddon, Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan: the reader gets multiple perspectives, which encourages empathy with each character, and Henkin's characters are more likable than most (which is not to say they don't have flaws - they do).
In this story, a family has drawn together in Lenox, MA, for the one-year anniversary of the youngest child's death, which also happens to be the Fourth of July. 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's keeping secret from everyone in his family except the middle sister; and the youngest sister, a converted Orthodox Jew, is at the end of her rope with a jobless husband and four boys of her own. The World Without You is the well-written story of family whose own lives are elsewhere, coming together to mourn their son/brother/husband/father, whose loss has altered their lives in different ways.
Quotes:
...now, when they should be cleaving together, they have instead been cleaved apart. (80)
She doesn't mind feeling alone when she's alone; it's when she's not alone and feels alone that she grows desperate. (119)
And she realizes, asking this, how little children know about their parents, how few questions they ask. (137)
There are wells of sadness within her that even she can't excavate. (143)
She's thirty-three now, and she wonders whether in another twelve years she'll regard the person she is today with the same resigned disbelief, whether she'll always be disowning earlier versions of herself. (148)
Everything she committed to memory is still committed to it, the things she wants to remember and the things she doesn't want to remember: nothing ever leaves. (184)
"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." (207)
In this story, a family has drawn together in Lenox, MA, for the one-year anniversary of the youngest child's death, which also happens to be the Fourth of July. 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's keeping secret from everyone in his family except the middle sister; and the youngest sister, a converted Orthodox Jew, is at the end of her rope with a jobless husband and four boys of her own. The World Without You is the well-written story of family whose own lives are elsewhere, coming together to mourn their son/brother/husband/father, whose loss has altered their lives in different ways.
Quotes:
...now, when they should be cleaving together, they have instead been cleaved apart. (80)
She doesn't mind feeling alone when she's alone; it's when she's not alone and feels alone that she grows desperate. (119)
And she realizes, asking this, how little children know about their parents, how few questions they ask. (137)
There are wells of sadness within her that even she can't excavate. (143)
She's thirty-three now, and she wonders whether in another twelve years she'll regard the person she is today with the same resigned disbelief, whether she'll always be disowning earlier versions of herself. (148)
Everything she committed to memory is still committed to it, the things she wants to remember and the things she doesn't want to remember: nothing ever leaves. (184)
"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." (207)
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