Sophomores

The Malones — dad, mom, son — are very Irish and very Catholic. Dad works for American Airlines, which transferred the family to Dallas in response to airline deregulation (the story takes place from late 1987 to mid 1988). Dad also has multiple sclerosis and is on his way to becoming an alcoholic. Then he gets laid off. As a young woman mom answered the call, but was driven from the church by priestly abuse. She has a degree in social work, but ends up as an under-appreciated housewife. She gets pried out of her tight orbit when selected for jury duty on an attempted murder trial. The son is fifteen, is an honors student at an all-male Catholic school, is on the swim team, is a virgin, and so on, and so forth.

The story is a mash-up. Each of the main characters has a story, and the family together is a fourth story. The son’s and the family’s stories are banal: the son wants a girlfriend, and to ace honors English; will the family survive dad being a drunk, mom being a shrew, and son being tormented? Dad’s story has slightly more going on, at least potentially, in the interaction of his three problems, but the focus on alcoholism moves the story along well-worn ruts. The story picks up at the end as the deus ex machina drop in, but the book’s almost over. Mom’s story is genuinely interesting, simultaneously resolving her injuries from within her faith and applying her faith in circumstances unreceptive to it. But the wellsprings of her faith are never deeply interrogated, and seem to lean towards inculcated habit buttressed by maudlin sentimentality (she has two bed-side vigils for women in comas).

Like most mash-ups, this one isn’t all that good. The seams between the parts are obvious, and the whole doesn’t hang together to provide an unexpected surprise like well-crafted mash-ups do. Part of the problem is the loose threads flying around, and the untidy ending in which almost nothing is resolved. But frowzy stories aren’t inherently bad; the main problem is in the telling. There isn’t enough sinew to keep the individual stories yoked together and working towards a common end. And the cliché bank is horrendously overdrawn. Starting with alcoholic Irish Catholics creates an immediately debt, one not retired by throwing in an eccentric (to the verge of sociopathy), driven honors English teacher. There’s plenty more to whine about — characterization, vocabulary, writing style, plot — but this review has already gone on too long.