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What We All Want
Like SIX FEET UNDER or Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS, this is a quirky but uplifting tale of a dysfunctional family..
A brilliant, original, dark and funny novel about three grown-up siblings dealing with the death of their alcoholic mother, Becka. Becka s daughter Hilary has nursed her through liver cancer; Hilary s brothers, Thomas and Billy, have been away for years, unable to cope with their mother. But they come back to bury her. Becka insists that she wants to bury her in the back garden where she can keep an eye on her.
As the three siblings quarrel over the details, Dick Mortimer the mortician intervenes. Can love flourish among the embalming fluids and solid oak coffins...?
Uniquely comic with a tragic edge, WHAT WE ALL WANT renders an incisive yet tender portrait of the strangeness of families and the universal desire for acceptance.
A brilliant, original, dark and funny novel about three grown-up siblings dealing with the death of their alcoholic mother, Becka. Becka s daughter Hilary has nursed her through liver cancer; Hilary s brothers, Thomas and Billy, have been away for years, unable to cope with their mother. But they come back to bury her. Becka insists that she wants to bury her in the back garden where she can keep an eye on her.
As the three siblings quarrel over the details, Dick Mortimer the mortician intervenes. Can love flourish among the embalming fluids and solid oak coffins...?
Uniquely comic with a tragic edge, WHAT WE ALL WANT renders an incisive yet tender portrait of the strangeness of families and the universal desire for acceptance.
248 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 6, 2020
Michelle Berry has succeeded in accomplishing what first-time novelists inevitably strive for in her debut novel entitled What We All Want, and she does it in a risky fashion, making the accomplishment all the more noteworthy.
What do we anticipate when we pick up our next read? A good story? Granted. But ultimately the novelist’s aim is to draw us into the fictional world she has created, so that in some way we too become ‘players’ of sorts, in the action. On some level, we want to relate to the characters, their particular way of reaching out to others, their various strengths and shortcomings too.
Berry’s characters are anything but conventional. Hilary Mount has transformed her living room into a stone beach, surrounds herself with hundreds of dolls, and is determined to bury her recently deceased mother in her own backyard, where she can keep an eye on her. Dick Mortimer’s life has centred around the funeral business, and we are spared few details of his profession. Berry wants us to know what this business of death is all about. And we may be surprised to find out just how comical the whole undertaking can be (please excuse my inexcusable pun). Thomas Mount left town years ago, and has concealed his gay lover from the family throughout his entire hiatus. Nor does he intend to reveal his sexual preferences to his siblings any time soon. Billy Mount drinks himself into oblivion on a daily basis.
Berry gathers her marginal group of characters together with the ostensible purpose of celebrating the life of the late Mrs. Mount. And in the days leading up to the funeral, we are introduced to and then quickly enveloped by the rather atypical lives of the Mount family. Berry’s great success resides in her ability to enable her reader to recognize at one and the same time the somewhat bizarre behaviours of her characters, together with their innate humanity. Their needs and wants are after all, not so different from our own. Love, death, beauty, redemption. Each of the universal poetic themes is addressed by Berry in this quirky first novel. And all are addressed with a compassion for her characters and their individual flaws.
Berry’s writing style might be described as almost “pared down”. The language she uses is precise and straightforward. No flowery detail or excessive use of adjectives is required to tell her story. The dialogue is realistic, and similarly direct. And yet this apparently simple writing is continually deceiving. For beneath what appears to be a straightforward, and guileless text lies some rather more complicated suggestions to the age-old question: What indeed, do we all want?
What do we anticipate when we pick up our next read? A good story? Granted. But ultimately the novelist’s aim is to draw us into the fictional world she has created, so that in some way we too become ‘players’ of sorts, in the action. On some level, we want to relate to the characters, their particular way of reaching out to others, their various strengths and shortcomings too.
Berry’s characters are anything but conventional. Hilary Mount has transformed her living room into a stone beach, surrounds herself with hundreds of dolls, and is determined to bury her recently deceased mother in her own backyard, where she can keep an eye on her. Dick Mortimer’s life has centred around the funeral business, and we are spared few details of his profession. Berry wants us to know what this business of death is all about. And we may be surprised to find out just how comical the whole undertaking can be (please excuse my inexcusable pun). Thomas Mount left town years ago, and has concealed his gay lover from the family throughout his entire hiatus. Nor does he intend to reveal his sexual preferences to his siblings any time soon. Billy Mount drinks himself into oblivion on a daily basis.
Berry gathers her marginal group of characters together with the ostensible purpose of celebrating the life of the late Mrs. Mount. And in the days leading up to the funeral, we are introduced to and then quickly enveloped by the rather atypical lives of the Mount family. Berry’s great success resides in her ability to enable her reader to recognize at one and the same time the somewhat bizarre behaviours of her characters, together with their innate humanity. Their needs and wants are after all, not so different from our own. Love, death, beauty, redemption. Each of the universal poetic themes is addressed by Berry in this quirky first novel. And all are addressed with a compassion for her characters and their individual flaws.
Berry’s writing style might be described as almost “pared down”. The language she uses is precise and straightforward. No flowery detail or excessive use of adjectives is required to tell her story. The dialogue is realistic, and similarly direct. And yet this apparently simple writing is continually deceiving. For beneath what appears to be a straightforward, and guileless text lies some rather more complicated suggestions to the age-old question: What indeed, do we all want?
March 29, 2013
A lovely quirky, yet meaningful story...like a Canadian Anne Tyler. Mom has died and now Hilary can summon her brothers home. Billy, who has lost his two jobs and has a problem with alcohol. His wife Tess is addicted to food and his 17-year-old daughter Sue is pregnant and won't or can't say who the father is. Thomas who hasn't been home in over 15 years and is afraid of flying. Thomas has another secret, he has been having a relationship with a man for 15 years and hasn't let on. And, then there is Hilary's connection with the Funeral Director, who was her best friend in school. With the room-to-room dolls, preserves and pebbles on the floor in the living room, What We All Want will capture both your attention and your heart.
June 16, 2009
Enjoyed this book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews