June 18, 2012
Crises approach from all sides for the Harding family in Porter’s (The Theory of Light and Matter) debut novel set in contemporary Houston, Tex. Architect father Elson, bitterly divorced from Cadence, struggles to stay connected to his much younger Filipina girlfriend, Lorna, while his children become unmoored. Son Richard, a gifted poet recently graduated from college, is living at home with his mother, tumbling into drugs and self-loathing as he figures out what to do with his life. Tipping the fragile family balance into chaos is the sudden return of daughter Chloe, who has taken an involuntary leave of absence from college after a potentially criminal connection to an incident involving her mysterious boyfriend Raja. Chloe’s abrupt disappearance soon after her arrival disrupts everyone as it soon becomes clear that Chloe will do anything for love. The improbable plot progresses through the perspective of each major family member with backward glimpses into the origins of the family’s current troubles and gestures to a potential future, but with the exception of Elson, the characters and their relationships are rarely convincing. And when a central conflict revolves around whether 20-something Richard will get an M.F.A. in poetry, any tension easily dissipates. The prose, while extremely competent, is excessive, with long passages of unnecessary dialogue, unnecessary exposition, and unconvincing interior monologues. An ambitious but ultimately disappointing look at a dysfunctional modern family. Agent: Terra Chalberg, Susan Golomb Agency.
August 15, 2012
A busted marriage, gay prostitution, a potential murder charge--what's a nice Texas family doing in a state like this? Porter's absorbing debut novel chronicles the slow-motion fracture of an upper-middle-class Houston clan. Elson, a well-regarded architect, has recently split from his wife, Cadence, and both are clumsily pursuing new relationships. Their son, Richard, is a promising young gay poet who's uncertain about how much he wants to commit to his art. But the real problem is their daughter, Chloe, who's been suspended from college under obscure circumstances. As Porter (The Theory of Light and Matter, 2008) cycles through each family member's inner life, their turmoil becomes more pronounced, and it becomes clear just what a heap of trouble Chloe is in: Her boyfriend, Raja, was involved in the violent beating of a fellow student who was bullying him, and Chloe's efforts to protect Raja have attracted police attention. The prose is smooth--practically frictionless, thanks to Porter's realistic yet meaningful dialogue and his plainspoken, nonjudgmental descriptions. (Porter operates in a practically metaphor-free universe.) Such simplicity can be to the book's detriment--the emotional conflicts, particularly between Elson and Cadence, sometimes feel undramatic and shopworn. Porter is on much firmer footing with Chloe and Richard: Every chapter in which they appear is more tense, defined by the clattering of existential questions they ponder. Porter wants to explore why we take such firm hold of some parts of our emotional lives but willfully neglect others, and his surprise ending suggests why it's worth breaking free of others' definitions of emotional attainment. The plot strains credulity in its later chapters, as Chloe disappears, and Richard is willing to do anything to help, but Porter's cool tone helps sell the story. A conventional dysfunctional-family tale that gets over on the author's firm command of language and his characters' neuroses.
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July 1, 2012
Porter's debut novel grabs the reader and does not let go until the last line. Houston is the setting and Chloe the focus. Chloe has been asked to leave her East Coast college owing to her tangential involvement in a violent incident for which her boyfriend Raja stands accused. Meanwhile, Chloe's father, Elson, and his wife, Cadence, grapple with their recent divorce and the fallout from their daughter's misadventures and sudden return home. Balancing Chloe's perspective is that of her brother, Brandon, a poet, who wrestles with protecting his sister and being true to himself. The plot moves backward and forward in time, artfully revealing key details and maintaining a mesmerizing level of suspense. As Chloe and her boyfriend flee justice, their fate seems very dire indeed. Crisis momentarily reunites the fractured family, but things fall apart and each member wheels off in a separate direction, some to better worlds and some to worse. VERDICT An examination of the development of identity as seen through the lens of the disintegration of family; highly recommended.--Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos Lib., CA
Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2012
Elson Harding's architecture career has stalled; his wife, Cadence, has divorced him; and he's drinking a bit too much. Their son, Richard, is still living at home, driving his mom's minivan and not speaking to his father because of his reaction to Richard's announcement that he is gay. But it is when daughter Chloe is kicked out of her eastern college under mysterious circumstances and returns to Houston that things really get interesting. Chloe refuses to explain what happened and, when her boyfriend, Raj, jumps bail and joins her, they disappear, with Richard's help. Elson and Cadence come together briefly in their grief, but the damage is done. And poor, guilty Richard must finally find his own life. The story is told with great emotional and psychological insight. All of the four Hardings get to tell their pieces of the story in their distinct voices, creating a multilayered and suspenseful tale of love in all its varieties and family defined in different ways.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)