What do you think?
Rate this book
Home Invasion
HOME INVASION is a novel in stories that examines a dysfunctional family across fifty years. The family’s multi generational saga reflects the foibles and vices of the late 20th and early 21st century America: religion, gambling, drink, war, the desire to escape ones past, and especially the commission of crimes. The sins vary in gravity, but each is the result of bad decisions, misplaced values, and deplorable parenting. Each story is set in a slightly different year, with a somewhat different cast of characters, moving chronologically yet circularly in theme.
"Abbott's writing is sharp, dark and heartbreaking. If you haven't read her yet, you'd better get going." -- Sandra Scoppettone, Author of the Lauren Laurano series
"Patricia Abbott's writing is honest and raw and real. Read her." -- Theresa Weir, New York Times best selling author of THE ORCHARD.
"Home Invasion features the darker side of a life that has become all too familiar in modern day America. Amidst the poverty and ignorance of families spinning out of control, a ray of hope flickers on the last best hope of a young child snatched from one bad situation to the next; a child given a fighting chance by a pair of men committed to family." -- Charlie Stella
"One of the most intelligent novels I’ve read in a long time. A Gothic tale of light and shadow, of open- and bright-eyed innocence torn asunder by evil people of small and insignificant stature. A long time ago, writer Sharon Sheehe Stark advised writers to write villains as without redemption—to not have them “like kittens” or any of the other commonly-held tenets in creating bad characters. To, instead, “paint the characters as completely black and allow the light escape from the cracks.” This is exactly what Patti Abbott has done in Home Invasion—she has crafted a wondrous tale of innocence lost and evil triumphing… but an evil so thorough that out of it emerge two men and a woman of uncommon and noble heroism. This is good writing. This is literature." -- Les Edgerton, The Bitch, Just Like That, Gumbo Ya-Ya and forthcoming: The Rapist.
"Abbott's writing is sharp, dark and heartbreaking. If you haven't read her yet, you'd better get going." -- Sandra Scoppettone, Author of the Lauren Laurano series
"Patricia Abbott's writing is honest and raw and real. Read her." -- Theresa Weir, New York Times best selling author of THE ORCHARD.
"Home Invasion features the darker side of a life that has become all too familiar in modern day America. Amidst the poverty and ignorance of families spinning out of control, a ray of hope flickers on the last best hope of a young child snatched from one bad situation to the next; a child given a fighting chance by a pair of men committed to family." -- Charlie Stella
"One of the most intelligent novels I’ve read in a long time. A Gothic tale of light and shadow, of open- and bright-eyed innocence torn asunder by evil people of small and insignificant stature. A long time ago, writer Sharon Sheehe Stark advised writers to write villains as without redemption—to not have them “like kittens” or any of the other commonly-held tenets in creating bad characters. To, instead, “paint the characters as completely black and allow the light escape from the cracks.” This is exactly what Patti Abbott has done in Home Invasion—she has crafted a wondrous tale of innocence lost and evil triumphing… but an evil so thorough that out of it emerge two men and a woman of uncommon and noble heroism. This is good writing. This is literature." -- Les Edgerton, The Bitch, Just Like That, Gumbo Ya-Ya and forthcoming: The Rapist.
Kindle Edition
First published March 7, 2013
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 23, 2014
Home Invasion is a real gem of a book. It tells the story of 4 generations of a family that find it hard to play straight.
We first meet Billie, a girl who is struggling along with her over-bearing mother (Kay) and new on the scene step-father (Mickey). Kay does her best to be a good mother and a good wife, two things that don’t fit together the way she works it. Amid all the chaos of the home, the writer sums it all up perfectly in one simple act, the devouring of one of the fish of another in the aquarium display:
“Damn,” Mickey said, almost to himself. “The guy at the store said they could cohabit.”
That’s a theme that will continue. With the best of intention, none of the Batch family can quite manage to live with anyone else, at least not in a traditional way.
Kay may have set the chain of grifting off, by sending back goods to stores and firms in order to be paid back with bulk packages by way of apology, but it was only with the best of intentions. Given these beginnings, it’s no wonder that after a disastrous attempt by Billie to get to know her real father, she becomes hooked to a man (Dennis) who is always on the make. It’s also completely logical that the children of Billie and Dennis are practically left to bring themselves up. There’s a wonderful description of Dennis and his slippery ways that speaks volumes. It describes a rare day out:
‘One time Dennis even spent the entire day with them, shooting off rockets in a nearby park with the other scouts and their dads. Dennis even talked to the other fathers, laughing like it was all he ever wanted to do. Like he knew how to be a regular dad. Like he was the most regular dad of all. All the other dads congregated around them that day; Dennis was good at fooling everyone.’
In the end, we get to see one of those kids, Charlie, slowly come to terms with the world. He takes to spending time in the houses and apartments of others and enjoying the peace he finds there. He enjoys the art on the walls and the books on the shelves. Most of all, I suspect, he just likes to be in a place that works as a home.
The plot that is built around these characters is a treat, but I’m not going to spoil that for you. Abbott describes things beautifully. There’s a really strong sense of period and also a wonderfully handled subtlety to the changes brought by time. As each of the Batches faces difficulty, there’s always a sense of tension that centres upon the way things might play out. For me there was also a real warmth about all the family members, even when the twists and turns of their decisions and their actions seem dark and cold. Best of all, there’s a wonderfully gentle humour that keeps things bright no matter how hopeless things seem.
The end result is a delight. It deals with some serious and traumatic events in the lives of a folk who have always found themselves holding on to the dirty end of the stick, yet manages to visit these difficult places and situations in a way that is always palatable.
In truth, I was expecting more of a traditional crime novel. What I got was actually much better than that – a well-polished view of the flip-side of the American dream where the crime provides the backdrop for the telling of a wonderful story.
Top class.
We first meet Billie, a girl who is struggling along with her over-bearing mother (Kay) and new on the scene step-father (Mickey). Kay does her best to be a good mother and a good wife, two things that don’t fit together the way she works it. Amid all the chaos of the home, the writer sums it all up perfectly in one simple act, the devouring of one of the fish of another in the aquarium display:
“Damn,” Mickey said, almost to himself. “The guy at the store said they could cohabit.”
That’s a theme that will continue. With the best of intention, none of the Batch family can quite manage to live with anyone else, at least not in a traditional way.
Kay may have set the chain of grifting off, by sending back goods to stores and firms in order to be paid back with bulk packages by way of apology, but it was only with the best of intentions. Given these beginnings, it’s no wonder that after a disastrous attempt by Billie to get to know her real father, she becomes hooked to a man (Dennis) who is always on the make. It’s also completely logical that the children of Billie and Dennis are practically left to bring themselves up. There’s a wonderful description of Dennis and his slippery ways that speaks volumes. It describes a rare day out:
‘One time Dennis even spent the entire day with them, shooting off rockets in a nearby park with the other scouts and their dads. Dennis even talked to the other fathers, laughing like it was all he ever wanted to do. Like he knew how to be a regular dad. Like he was the most regular dad of all. All the other dads congregated around them that day; Dennis was good at fooling everyone.’
In the end, we get to see one of those kids, Charlie, slowly come to terms with the world. He takes to spending time in the houses and apartments of others and enjoying the peace he finds there. He enjoys the art on the walls and the books on the shelves. Most of all, I suspect, he just likes to be in a place that works as a home.
The plot that is built around these characters is a treat, but I’m not going to spoil that for you. Abbott describes things beautifully. There’s a really strong sense of period and also a wonderfully handled subtlety to the changes brought by time. As each of the Batches faces difficulty, there’s always a sense of tension that centres upon the way things might play out. For me there was also a real warmth about all the family members, even when the twists and turns of their decisions and their actions seem dark and cold. Best of all, there’s a wonderfully gentle humour that keeps things bright no matter how hopeless things seem.
The end result is a delight. It deals with some serious and traumatic events in the lives of a folk who have always found themselves holding on to the dirty end of the stick, yet manages to visit these difficult places and situations in a way that is always palatable.
In truth, I was expecting more of a traditional crime novel. What I got was actually much better than that – a well-polished view of the flip-side of the American dream where the crime provides the backdrop for the telling of a wonderful story.
Top class.
September 13, 2013
Being a big fan of Patti Abbot's short stories, I was excited when I heard about a full length novel. When I heard Snubnose Press was the publisher, I knew I had to grab it. A very entertaining tale about an incredibly dysfunctional family that spans 30 years. The story is told in a bunch of short stories that make up one large story. An interesting format that worked beautifully. A terrific book and highly recommended for fans of her short fiction which has been featured in about every crime mag out there. I am hoping for another full length novel from Patti in the future.
March 27, 2013
Patti Abbot's first novel. Something all us fans have been waiting for since she first began publishing her most excellent short stories.
It's a story of a family played out over fifty years, from the early sixties to today, in a series of short stories linked together much more than the term fix-up implies. Each depends on the previous to advance the story begun with Billie Slack and her efforts to find her father, her "marriage" to Dennis to her son and his family in modern times. A family broken and trying to fix itself all along the way.
The work bears Patti's style of storytelling and easy readability to make for a fine look at what can happen to a family making decisions, some good, some bad, and how it comes out in the end.
Loved this book and recommend it highly.
It's a story of a family played out over fifty years, from the early sixties to today, in a series of short stories linked together much more than the term fix-up implies. Each depends on the previous to advance the story begun with Billie Slack and her efforts to find her father, her "marriage" to Dennis to her son and his family in modern times. A family broken and trying to fix itself all along the way.
The work bears Patti's style of storytelling and easy readability to make for a fine look at what can happen to a family making decisions, some good, some bad, and how it comes out in the end.
Loved this book and recommend it highly.
March 5, 2014
This is the first book I've read by Patti Abbott, one of those things I stumbled on and saved, then found in my Kindle yesterday...and read straight through. She's stealthy. Her prose, her plotting. And stealthy is the highest compliment you can give, because it's not saying "the writing was beautiful, the plot moved quickly" - it's not noticing the plotting or the prose, it's blinking and being halfway through the book, having paid no attention to how it was crafted or constructed at all, because you were IN it.
I'll definitely be seeking more.
I'll definitely be seeking more.
April 12, 2013
Home Invasion is blissfully both a novel and a short story collection. There are continuing characters that connect this set of stories, which extend over a period of time from 1961 to 2005. They are mostly about members of the same family and the people whose lives happen to intersect with them. The way people find and connect with other people, gives her stories their particular twist. They are drawn together by a kind of magnetic pull that matches up weaknesses in their character rather than strengths.
There’s a bit of Raymond Carver in these stories, though I did not think of him while reading them. Abbott brings her own wry perspective that examines the lives of marginal people but sidesteps Carver’s pathos. You are more likely to groan than sigh at the ends of chapters as characters extricate themselves from one awkward situation only to create another. Carver’s people make mistakes and don’t get what they deserve. Abbott’s do.
The situations they get themselves into typically involve the telling of lies or half-truths or keeping the truth from someone else. The “home invasion” of the title is a good metaphor for all this. Given the chance, they will transgress boundaries, steal, blame others, and take advantage of other peoples’ trust.
The dysfunction in Abbott’s families would be painful if it wasn’t also grimly humorous. Probably my favorite sequence in the book (originally a stand-alone story) describes a family’s day at the shore. Two small brothers are left to fend for themselves as their mother finds a bar to get drunk and their father is up to no good, while continually complaining about how much the day is costing him. The final words of that story elicit one of the well-deserved groans I mentioned earlier.
What I enjoy about a Patti Abbott story is the economy of the storytelling and the finely polished prose. Her dialogue is sharp and darkly funny. Nearly everything that happens is unexpected, and while endings are often surprises, they are also inevitable. Her characters are so nicely complex that you want to hear more about them, and this novel does just that.
There’s a bit of Raymond Carver in these stories, though I did not think of him while reading them. Abbott brings her own wry perspective that examines the lives of marginal people but sidesteps Carver’s pathos. You are more likely to groan than sigh at the ends of chapters as characters extricate themselves from one awkward situation only to create another. Carver’s people make mistakes and don’t get what they deserve. Abbott’s do.
The situations they get themselves into typically involve the telling of lies or half-truths or keeping the truth from someone else. The “home invasion” of the title is a good metaphor for all this. Given the chance, they will transgress boundaries, steal, blame others, and take advantage of other peoples’ trust.
The dysfunction in Abbott’s families would be painful if it wasn’t also grimly humorous. Probably my favorite sequence in the book (originally a stand-alone story) describes a family’s day at the shore. Two small brothers are left to fend for themselves as their mother finds a bar to get drunk and their father is up to no good, while continually complaining about how much the day is costing him. The final words of that story elicit one of the well-deserved groans I mentioned earlier.
What I enjoy about a Patti Abbott story is the economy of the storytelling and the finely polished prose. Her dialogue is sharp and darkly funny. Nearly everything that happens is unexpected, and while endings are often surprises, they are also inevitable. Her characters are so nicely complex that you want to hear more about them, and this novel does just that.
June 12, 2014
When I first picked up 'Home Invasion', I thought it was a home invasion gone wrong kind of story. But 'Home Invasion is a much larger story, covering four generations, over forty years, and the cons that bind them.
I don't want to ruin it for anyone by giving it a synopsis proper. As I said, it covers forty years, and you really have to see the progression of the family to enjoy it most. I don't want to give spoilers. But I will say that there are two central characters and two themes to each of them.
Billie Slack, who starts the story, is a third wheel on her mother, Kay's, quest to find a stable, well off husband. Billie's quest to find her father leads to a heart-breaking experience, and as she grows, gets married and has children, you can feel the decline in her from her childhood self.
The next character that stands out the most is Charlie, Billie's youngest son. Charlie starts out as a thin, weak kid, and grows to become a stronger, working man... except that his early work was home invasion. When he gets a daughter, he has to live with who she is, and how he got her.
Abbott is a supreme scene-setter. Not three page descriptions; sometimes just one paragraph, but it says it all. And not just the physical scene, either. She can make you follow this family through their smallest moments to their biggest turning points, and put you right in the room, the bar, at the beach, anywhere she wants to put you. One of the best things I liked what how she kept Billie close to you when she was a hopeful teenager, but pulled back her narrative as Billie began to fade on herself.
I don't want to ruin it for anyone by giving it a synopsis proper. As I said, it covers forty years, and you really have to see the progression of the family to enjoy it most. I don't want to give spoilers. But I will say that there are two central characters and two themes to each of them.
Billie Slack, who starts the story, is a third wheel on her mother, Kay's, quest to find a stable, well off husband. Billie's quest to find her father leads to a heart-breaking experience, and as she grows, gets married and has children, you can feel the decline in her from her childhood self.
The next character that stands out the most is Charlie, Billie's youngest son. Charlie starts out as a thin, weak kid, and grows to become a stronger, working man... except that his early work was home invasion. When he gets a daughter, he has to live with who she is, and how he got her.
Abbott is a supreme scene-setter. Not three page descriptions; sometimes just one paragraph, but it says it all. And not just the physical scene, either. She can make you follow this family through their smallest moments to their biggest turning points, and put you right in the room, the bar, at the beach, anywhere she wants to put you. One of the best things I liked what how she kept Billie close to you when she was a hopeful teenager, but pulled back her narrative as Billie began to fade on herself.
December 26, 2013
Patti Abbott has a well deserved reputation for writing thoughtful short stories about ordinary people who find themselves living on the edge or caught up in criminal activities. Home Invasion is her first novel and parses out her skill as a short story writer into a longer narrative that follows the trials and tribulations of different generations of a dysfunctional family of grifters over nearly half a century. Each chapter is set in a different year at a key inflection point in a family history that involves a whole tapestry of selfishness, misfortune, poor decisions and various crimes -- fraud, rape, cons, neglect, robbery, kidnap, murder -- and prison sentences. These episodes are told through evocative prose and a narrative that perfectly captures the unfolding scenes, the tenuous web of social relations, complex swirl of emotions, and the foreboding that things will never quite work out as desired. Although cast as a crime novel and published by a press specialising in noir and hardboiled stories, Home Invasion is more of a social commentary about a family struggling on the edge of the underclass, unable or unwilling to find upward mobility into respectability; a dark, unsettling, sympathetic and thoughtful tale that never quite extinguishes hope. Whilst not the cheeriest of reads, I thought it was wonderful.
April 2, 2013
If you've read Patti Abbott's short fiction, you already know she's exceedingly good at using subtle details to create complex characters and atmospheric situations. This novel is no different. It follows a somewhat typical (though compelling) American family through 50 years of dysfunction and the result is a heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful, novel. This is top notch writing, folks, and I look forward to reading much more of Abbott's work.
July 31, 2013
Quite compelling. A series of interlinked stories detailing the history of a dysfunctional family. Some of the plot twists are surprising to say the least, which kept me entertained. My only complaint is that Abbott's writing can be a little flat and lacking affect.
July 20, 2013
So lucid. So potent. So unsettling. This is the deadliest portrait of a dysfunctional family that I can remember...and Patti Abbott makes it look easy. Oh my, is she good.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews