Book Review: Red Hook Road
Red Hook Road: A Novel by Ayelet Waldman
Publisher: Doubleday
Release Date: July 13, 2010
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Copakens are a well-to-do family that summers in the small Maine town where the Tetherlys are year-round townies. The Copaken and Tetherly families expected that their lives would be forever intertwined when Becca Copaken and John Tetherly got married. However, when Becca and John are killed in a car accident on the way to their wedding reception, the two families find themselves bound by tragedy rather than joy.
This novel is written in four parts – the summer Becca and John get married and the following three summers. I thought this was an interesting technique, to jump ahead to see how everyone is dealing with their loss. Obviously, the first summer, the grief is intense. It’s interesting to see how each character evolves over the next few summers. This novel is a character study. Not much happens in the way of plot (except for an out-of-place action adventure sequence at the end) but the characters are well-developed.
I liked that the reader could play arm chair psychologist with the characters while they remained mostly unaware of the coping mechanisms they were employing to deal with losing Becca and John. That was so authentic to me. We often think we are fine when our actions prove otherwise and we can’t even see it. I also appreciated how well the author showed the contrast of how the loved ones of the victims grieve for a lot longer and more deeply than their friends and acquaintances realize and how the grievers can end up alienating the people around them for this reason without realizing it.
This is obviously not a happy book but I enjoyed it. I thought the writing was wonderful and that the characters were all layered and well-drawn. Even though they did a lot of things I either didn’t agree with or didn’t think was very smart, there was always an organic motivation behind their actions that rang true.
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