February 25, 2019
This canny dark comedy of errors from Tanen (Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same) invites readers to indulge in the idiosyncrasies and misadventures of the dysfunctional Kessler clan. Aging celebrity author Bunny Small and her hedonistic, synthetic opioid–addicted ex-husband Marty Kessler, a famous film producer, and their progeny bicker, battle, and express love in their own unique ways as they all convene for the first time in more than a decade. For each of the children and grandchildren, familial and societal obligations bubble up as unresolved traumas in startling ways: 17-year-old Hailey, Marty’s granddaughter through an earlier marriage, suffered through a neglected adolescence; Janine, Bunny and Marty’s middle-aged daughter, resents the fame that came with being the daughter of Hollywood royalty; and Henry Holter, Bunny’s 20-something son through another marriage, is emotionally exhausted from being named after one of his mother’s well-known characters. While very little happens, much resolution is found between the characters. Tanen’s memorable wry humor (“I’m not inert, I just know my limitations”) and sharp dialogue will leave readers fully invested the rebuilding of relationships despite years of distance, trauma, and pain. Tanen’s refreshing tale of a nontraditional family legacy will appeal to fans of tightly plotted dramas in the vein of Maggie Shipstead’s work.
Starred review from January 15, 2019
A long-divorced pair of 70-something celebrities runs into each other at a ritzy Malibu rehab center.Tanen's (Are You Going to Kiss Me Now?, 2011, etc.) first novel for adults follows a YA title and a hilarious series of illustrated books featuring yellow chicks. Though her delightful sense of humor infuses the plot and dialogue with sparkle, the characters and their predicaments are not played for laughs, or not only for laughs--along with the farcical situations come moments of real emotion and insight. The novel's title refers to German words that express concepts that take a whole sentence to convey in English, like Verschlimmbessern ("to make matters worse in the process of trying to improve them") and Schnapsidee ("a plan so stupid, it must have come from a drunken mind"). These and three other such terms are the titles of the five sections of the book. In the first, two senior citizens with celebrated careers turn their lives into train wrecks. Marty Kessler is a retired Hollywood producer whose gold-digging girlfriend packs him off to Directions Rehabilitation Center for yet another stint in rehab when his opioid-and-benzo habit veers out of control. Bunny Small is a gin-swilling British author with a series of bestselling books for teens about a character named Henry Holter. When her estranged adult son, also named Henry Holter, fails to show up at the 70th birthday party thrown for her by her agent, she goes off the rails altogether. She, too, is sent to Directions. The family members who remain in the outside world have troubles of their own: Henry's girlfriend is cheating on him, and now his mother, whom he crossed the globe to escape, has shown up in Los Angeles. Marty's daughters, Janine and Amanda, have never fully recovered from their mother's long-ago suicide; Janine has the additional burden of having been a huge television star when she was a child, while Amanda's twin daughters hate each other. As the characters weather tough times and deal with hurts old and new, love and humor light the way.Full of intelligence and charm.
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March 1, 2019
Readers who miss The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg (2012) and the Lamberts from Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections (2001) will welcome the Kesslers. Marty is a washed-up film producer in denial about his dwindling finances. Marty's daughter Janine can't find her place in the world, an anxious adult after life as a child TV star. Amanda, Marty's other daughter, recently divorced, communicates with Janine by blind copying her on emails. Amanda's teen daughter Hailey wants to be an actress as much as her mother wants her not to be. Most families gather around holidays, but it's rehab that brings the Kesslers together. Sent to Directions to deal with his small heroin habit, Marty is shocked to run into his long-forgotten (or, in the case of his daughters, never mentioned) first wife, Bunny, forced into rehab for alcoholism. He isn't nearly as shocked as Janine, who has been dating a man who turns out to be Bunny's son. With equal parts humor and empathy, Tanen's first novel for adults employs multiple narrators and a skillfully drawn cross-generational family to examine how relatives impact one another.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)