User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This is a story about a sublimely dysfunctional family and how that dysfunction is revealed, slowly, artfully, deliberately, makes for a very entertaining read. I particularly appreciate how even the worst of this family, Victor, is treated with some generosity, some understanding that people are complicated, even when they are terrible. I questioned the frame at times but was absolutely enraptured by the portrait within that frame.
Rating: really liked it
This is my 2nd time reading Jamie Attenberg.
I absolutely hated the ‘popular’ book, “The Middlesteins”. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
So — I’ve been extremely hesitant to read her again. Intentionally passing on her other books.
I liked “All This Could Be Yours” better’ than “The Middlesteins”...but I didn’t exactly feel narrative-energy on my skin, either.
Hmmmm????
I like contemporary fiction. I like messy family drama.....
So?????
I’m left wondering, “what’s not working?”
Why do Jami’s books have me feeling cold?
Jarring? off-putting? Yes... a little.
I did appreciate the themes and topics, ( the pains explored)....yet not fiercely in my gut.
I ‘think’ it’s a styling-thing...
Not sure... puzzling to me too.
Between 2.5 - and 3 stars for me.
Rating: really liked it
Jami Attenberg is one of those novelists I am always curious about, because I read her books and I know they are good, but they never really connect with me on the level I want them to. This doesn't mean she is a bad writer (she is an objectively good one!) but the way in which her books *should* work for me and then don't quite work for me fascinates me and I cannot figure it out.
The cycle played out again here, this is a messy family drama that shifts perspectives, holds on to a few key reveals, and really asks about anger and forgiveness within families. These are all topics I'm deeply interested in! And I found many of the characters incredibly compelling! It just never quite hit for me in that very specific subjective way that I hoped it would. It's really interesting, really readable, with people who are messy and barely keeping it together and I think it is probably a great fit for 99% of other people who love that kind of book.
At the center of the book is Victor, on his deathbed, after he was a criminal, a bad husband, and a bad father. Not just a little bad, a lot bad. His family reckons with this in different ways. His daughter Alex rages, his son Gary disappears, his wife Barbara gets quiet, his daughter-in-law Twyla prays. And everybody eventually has a breakdown. The characters were so deep and interesting. I loved the way Attenberg really rooted the story in New Orleans. (I wish the cover made this more clear, while there is a storage unit scene, I would have loved a New Orleans-themed cover.)
The shuffling perspectives made it a little harder on me as a reader. Along with our main characters, there's plenty of side characters who come in and out. Sometimes they get a whole chapter, sometimes just a paragraph. I liked the idea but didn't love the execution. But overall it's very smartly plotted, strong use of flashbacks, great reveals.
Rating: really liked it
I like her writing a lot, but I’m really not sure what her intent was with this book. Family members have to finally talk to each other when the father is dying. He was a horrible man and nobody is sad he’s going. We follow each family member around and learn about their lives, but that’s it. There are also some long sections on completely peripheral characters that seem to be there just for filler. There isn’t a real plot, and I didn’t see a lot here about the father’s impact on the lives of the family members. There is an incident right before his death that impacts one member, but it seemed more titillating than realistic. Really more like 2.5⭐️.
Rating: really liked it
As indicated by its title and “Storage Wars”-esque cover, this little novel - importantly, largely set in New Orleans - is a meditation on dealing with legacies, whether family, relational, economic, civic, institutional, or otherwise.
Most compellingly, I think, the book considers the specific legacies of abuse and especially of neglect - be it emotional, as in parental emotional neglect, or neglect of a marriage, or neglect of a city’s infastructure, or neglect of rules and responsibilities to others - and the human struggle to understand, integrate, and respond to it.
The novel is primarily told through the alternating viewpoints - mostly but not exclusively in the form of internal monologues - of immediate and extended family members of dying wealthy patriarch Victor Tuchman, a ruthless corporate gangster who seems like a horrible amalgamation of Bernie Madoff, Harvey Weinstein, and Jimmy Hoffa. Victor as a character is really only the named storm that has rolled through the Tuchman family and its environs; we hear directly from him once at the outset, but the novel is more concerned with examining the wide swath of fallout and collateral damage his actions have wrought, emotional and otherwise, so he remains mostly a dark and ominous looming presence gradually sketched out for us by others over the course of the novel.
The novel’s structure is appropriate to the examination of a ripple effect and Attenberg’s storytelling method thus seems to take a concentric circular pattern: Attenberg takes pains to explore the motivations of the few characters (primarily matriarch Barbra) who deliberately chose to align their lives with Victor’s, then the ensuing impacts on other characters who just got stuck with him (children for instance, especially Tuchman daughter Alex and son Gary, but also in-laws and grandkids), and then, most interestingly to me, a selection of ancillary characters that these characters encounter during the days Victor lays in his New Orleans hospital bed, whether in the corridors of the hospital itself or in the city’s public transportation, its bars and restaurants, its neighborhoods and parks. In one masterful passage that was but one “page” on my little new Kindle Next Gen, Attenberg ties together the narratives of the primary and all these ancillary characters in a way that I think is worthy of Faulkner, highlighting our for-better-or-for-worse universal interconnectedness. The New Orleans setting seems perfectly appropriate to this endeavor, as the phenomenon of Hurricane Katrina and its ongoing aftermath represents not simply a natural disaster, but rather what happens when one collides with an historical legacy of generations of people’s decisions and actions.
I guess it makes sense that stories centered around families of rich, monstrous parents seem to be having a cultural moment (consider “Succession,” of which I am admittedly a rabid fan...cue tinkly-raging piano music). Attenberg is darkly funny like Succession, but I appreciate that she also embraces an inherently hopeful outlook. Her characters are flawed and struggling but, for the most part, relentlessly reflective and self-examining. They are actively, creatively living with whatever they’ve been left to work with, and it’s a big old mess, but the message here is that it’s never too late (until you’re dead) to weed that garden, to get your hands dirty, to alter your heretofore relentless course and rebuild maybe somehow better.
Rating: really liked it
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
3.5 Stars
All This Could Be Yours is the story of an estranged family who gather together (or avoid even further, in the case of one) at the family patriarch’s deathbed. This is dysfunction at its best as everyone comes to terms with either being raised by or married to a guy like . . . . .
Jamie Attenberg isn’t an author for everyone, but she’s an auto-request for me. Her stories aren’t necessarily life-changers, but boy oh boy are they full of characters you won’t soon forget and pages that practically turn themselves. If you like drama of the nuclear family sort, this may be a winner for you.
Sorry for the lack of “oomph” here. What can I say????
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!
Rating: really liked it
This book was fine. The writing was very good. I'm not quite sure what was happening or why. I didn't connect to any of the characters.
Rating: really liked it
He always wanted to talk to Alex, because she was not just his sister, but also his friend, and also, they had both survived that house in Connecticut together, and it was a natural instinct to accept her hand when she reached it toward him... and she was so breathless with the news about their father's heart attack she sounded nearly joyful, which anyone else might have found inappropriate but he didn't, he was on her team, and she was on his... pg. 11
So. I went into this book the way I prefer to go into all books, completely blind. What would it be about? What would the author be like? (This is my first Attenberg.) What surprises lay in store for me?
The book does not have a plot. I'm just going to come out and say it. It doesn't have a real story arc. A plot. A getting from point-A to point-B narrative.
It takes place over the course of a day or so after, at the beginning of the book, an evil patriarch of the family has a heart attack. How are is wife, two adult children, and two grandchildren affected by this?
That's it. If you are expecting some kind of resolution, or, like me, were expecting some sort of twist that would bring the whole book together beautifully, you are not going to get it.
You're saying it's open-ended?No. It's not open-ended. It's not closed-ended. It's not anything-ended, there's no conclusion. There's a
beginning, which is: patriarch of the family has a heart attack... but there's no ending and the book isn't going anywhere.
It's basically: look at this family for a day or two.
That might be appealing to some people, unappealing to others. But I think it's a good thing to let people know about. This isn't a traditional narrative.
Attenberg is a good author as in putting-words-together. (Which is different than being a good author in re: plotting.) I recoiled from her writing style at the beginning. It's choppy and consists of short bursts and short sentences pasted together, but I quickly got used to it and actually quite enjoyed it.
She makes a lot of great, true observations about the world. That is a plus.
She also can be funny at times. I never laughed out loud, but I did kind of exhale-air-quickly at a few parts in amusement. This isn't a funny book, but there were a few pieces of humor in there that were very brief - but appreciated by this reader.
The main thrust of this book is not for Attenberg to tell a story. That's not her intent, as we can see from her lack of plot. Instead, she is using this book to make statements and observations about misogyny, abuse, the patriarchy, how women have to navigate a life of being second-class citizens to men, feminism.
Now. I'm a feminist. A lot of GREAT points are being made here by Attenberg. A lot of great points. She had some very relevant, interesting things to say.
Alex realized that this was an important moment in the development of her child. A question was being asked that needed a responsible answer. She could teach her child about honesty, and about the way she deserved to be treated by a man, but also how it was possible to love someone even if they were deeply, deeply, deeply flawed. (And, if she were to be fair to her ex-husband, how it was possible to be attracted to two people at the same time, even have two separate relationships, but that was his line of defense, not hers.)
Or was she supposed to tell Sadie that her father didn't know how to keep his dick in his pants, and that he never had, not for as long as she'd known him, not in college when he was someone else's boyfriend cheating with her, not when they lived together in Chicago when they were in law school, not after they got married and moved to the suburbs where they both were equally bored, but still somehow she had managed to remain faithful while he hadn't. Not ever was there a time when that man's penis stayed put where it was supposed to be, instead of living its life as a free-flying dilettante, a party penis, as if it were some sort of rich-kid celebrity DJ hitting new hot spots, London, Paris, Ibiza, except instead of those cities it would be a paralegal's vagina instead. pg. 32
She makes some amazing points about women's emotional labor.
She loved him. He was the daddy. Her daddy. He flipped through his marked Bible; he had more to say. "It's OK, I'm listening," she said. And that was the day she invented it, this particular glazed expression of hers. She had created it to please her father, but it had served her well in her life. When she wore it, most men thought she was listening to them, and most women knew that the conversation was over. pg. 42
Every woman in this novel has to cover her real self up in some way, stifle herself, manipulate herself for a man. Put up with men's demands and egos in order to achieve what they want out of life (or whatever the patriarchy tells them to want out of life). The only woman who semi-escapes this is Sharon, a black woman on the periphery of this novel who values her independence and decides not to have children or give away any part of herself to please a man. But she still suffers under the patriarchy, as we see here:
She had lived through a long-running commentary on the development of her physique from strangers and acquaintances and certain family members since she was thirteen years old, which meant it had been nearly thirty-seven years that she'd been forced to contemplate her shape by men when she was just trying to live her life, along with all the near misses, gropes, a med school colleague whom she witnessed putting some sort of pill in her beer when he thought she wasn't looking, the tight-gripped greeting of a few men in professional circles, the constant pressure to be something other than herself, phew. No more, she thought. When she went home at night, she wanted quiet. ....
The amount of work that had to be put in to protect the self-esteem of men when women should be worrying instead about building their own. This was why men exhausted her so. It was a wonder the world didn't collapse daily from the weight of men's egos, she thought. pg. 271
It's not as if I don't agree with Attenberg's main points. I do. The patriarchy exists. It's terrible. It makes both women and men terrible. Abuse is horrible, abuse breeds abuse. Misogyny breeds misogyny. Women learn to hate themselves from the patriarchy and from men. Women are still not equal to men in society and that is bad.
HOWEVER. What bothers me about this book is Attenberg's insistence that no man is good. Or, perhaps more accurately, all men are misogynists. It's like this idea that every white person is a racist. I mean, sure, the patriarchy is very strong and even men who think they aren't influenced by the system that keeps men on top are. Everyone is trained in the patriarchy and raised up in the patriarchy. But I resist this all-men-are-bad garbage.
Look, I have some amazing relationships with men in my life. The only good relationship between a man and a woman in this book is the one between Alex and her brother Gary. Gary can't stand women, "except for his daughter." And "except for his sister." All women are this, all women are that, women are such pains in the ass - but I love my daughter and sister. That's misogyny. He's a misogynist.
But Attenberg is saying the only good, true, honest relationship with a man you can have as a woman is with sibling - if you are VERY LUCKY. And I disagree with that. Attenberg is telling us over and over and over again that a man and a woman cannot have an honest, comfortable romantic relationship with each other. It's impossible. I DISAGREE. I have had honest, comfortable relationships with romantic partners. It doesn't have to be the horrorfest she is describing, where even if you didn't marry a Piece of Shit (like the patriarch here), you still have to play games with your man and manipulate your man and perform emotional labor for your man because your man has power over you and you are, always in one way or another, performing to earn your keep. You could be starving yourself to please him, shutting up to please him, not stating your opinion to please him, giving up your job to please him, engaging in sex acts you hate to please him etc. etc. etc. but you are destroying part of your soul in some way to be with a man. It's the price you have to pay for heterosexuality, Attenberg informs us.
NO, IT'S NOT. You do NOT have to do this. Sure, that's going to make things more difficult for you in the dating/relationship world, but it IS possible. You CAN have a bullshit-free relationship. Attenberg does not believe this to be possible.
AS A RESULT of her not thinking a man and a woman can be in a comfortable, relatively honest and loving relationship, she turns a lot of her characters into lesbians.
What do you mean, 'TURNS her characters into lesbians.' You don't 'turn' into a lesbian.Ha ha ha ha. In Attenberg's world, you do. I mean, men are horrible, right? And since men are so horrible, why not be with women instead? This is some fucked-up thinking. Some Zane shit. It's insulting to men, it's insulting to straight women, and it's insulting to lesbians. "Oh, lesbians are women who have given up on men. Freed themselves from the patriarchy. Found happiness by cutting men out of their lives." That's not how this works. If there was simply a lesbian character in here, I wouldn't be saying this shit, but this book has more than one lesbian, and more than one secret-lesbian (married to a man she has to please and placate for money or status, but then secretly has love affairs with women on the side). This is just bizarre. Lesbians-are-women-who-have-turned-away-from-men-due-to-bad-experiences shit.
She also uses the narrative that's a tired cliche at this point, it's a joke at this point, that women who get interested in feminism start experimenting with f/f sexuality. It's offensive. It's perfectly possible to become a feminist and realize the truth about the patriarchy without deciding to get sexual with another woman. Feminists-are-lesbians-on-some-level shit.
And saying straight women eventually wise up and get with women romantically because men are horrible people is offensive.
I found her main concepts in this vein to be baffling and exasperating.
Also, the ending ("ending") could be a subtle wrap-up. So subtle that you miss the one sentence that explains things. I took it as so-subtle-it-was-unintended, but perhaps Attenberg is creating an ending where she's saying (view spoiler)
[Barbra murdered her husband with cocaine, and Twyla becomes yet ANOTHER lesbian-convert. (hide spoiler)] But it's not explicit, clear, or discussed in any way, and you can - I guess - choose to see this ending or choose to see no ending. IMO if the author is going to be this cagey than forget it.
There are other minor missteps here: like when a very minor character LITERALLY throws herself into a volcano to kill herself - which is ludicrous and instantly yanks you out of the novel. And there's this sentence, which I hate:
Alex and Sadie waved at each other, Sadie's smile a metallic gleam of the most expensive, longest-running batch of braces in history, like some well-loved, sentimental Broadway musical. pg. 29
It's almost unfair to mention this sentence. Attenberg is a stellar writer and most of her writing in this book is on-point.
I also was having trouble separating Twyla's voice and Alex's voice in the middle-end of the novel. To be fair, writing perspectives is very difficult. You are one person, so voicing multiple characters distinctly is difficult. I have to point it out, though. It's a weakness in the book.
TL;DR I would not recommend this book to anyone. It's not a book I'd recommend. That's not a criticism of Attenberg's skill with words. She's quite skilled. But the book has quite a few weaknesses: its blanket ideas about men (men are horrible people - whether they mean to be or not, aware of it or not; men are dumb or clueless about women because they are unable to see women as fully human), its ideas about lesbians, its lack of plot. It had a lot of strengths: good writing, some interesting and well-written ideas about the world, the book is smart and observant. You might love it - hopefully my review helps you figure out if this book is for you one way or another.
NAMES IN THIS BOOK(view spoiler)
[
Corey m
Barbra f 68 nn Kitty nn Barbie
Victor m 73
Alex f
Gary m
Avery 12 f
Abby f
Natasha f
Tori f
Latoya f
Sadie f ¼ Korean, ¼ Swedish, ½ Russian
Gabrielle f
Pablo m
Camila f
Sharon f
Twyla f
Sierra f
Bobby m – half-Korean
Catherine f
Anya f
Mordechai m
Josef m
Bernie m
Cora f
Tracy f
Shana f
Tonya f
Carver m
Candice f
Tiffany f
Maya f
Darcy f
Garth m
Caroline f
Vivian f
Kat f
Raquel f
Elena f
Portia f
Jeannie f
Sally f
Ringo – turkey
Rich m
Kimberly f
Terrence m
Gloria f
Mikel m
Matthew m
Tamara f
Jazmine f
Layla f
Nadine f
Roxie f
Joseph m
Gabe m
Miguel m
(hide spoiler)]
Rating: really liked it
I have read many glowing reviews for this book, and many of those reviews state that this book may not be for everyone. I think I fall into that group of people who are just not the right fit for this book.
All That Could Be Yours is a book about a seriously dysfunctional family. Victor, the family patriarch, is a horrible man in every aspect. There is nothing redeeming about him. His influence on the family causes trouble and dysfunction through multiple generations. This novel explores how Victor's terribleness affects his wife, children and even grandchildren. It is very bleak with really no hint of redemption for any of these characters. I just felt really sad and hopeless after finishing it.
Jami Attenberg has a very original writing style, and I did appreciate the writing and its uniqueness. The perspective shifts between the main characters and even to the occasional perpsective of minor characters along the periphery. This is a character driven book, and the pacing is fairly slow. While there were things that I could appreciate about the writing and the structure of the story, ultimately the characters and plot were so bleak that I just did not find much enjoyment while reading.
Thanks to Net Galley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest reivew. This book is available now!
Rating: really liked it
2.5 stars
I finished this one a few days ago but I needed to let it linger for a little bit while I gathered my thoughts. I kept thinking maybe I missed something because this book has such good reviews and some are even saying that it’s the best book they have read this year. This is just proof that everyone’s opinions are different because honestly, I had trouble getting through this one. I couldn’t connect with the characters or the story.
I’m usually a sucker for family drama, especially to the level of dysfunction of the family in this story. I’ve seen some reviews comparing this book to Ask Again, Yes which I absolutely loved but the characters in that story were so much easier to relate to. There were too many characters in this one. I couldn’t really keep track of who was who and sometimes the point of view of two different characters would be intertwined leaving me with that “wait... what?” kind of feeling.
There’s an audience for every book. I unfortunately wasn’t the right person for this one. I did laugh a few times throughout. And I didn’t DNF it because I did have the urge to see where it wound up. I wasn’t really satisfied with that either. I do realize I’m on a pretty lonely island with this one, but I’m okay with that. I can’t love em all!
Rating: really liked it
All This Could Be Yours is a slow, meandering portrait of a dysfunctional family. It took me a minute to find its rhythm when I started reading this, but as it progresses, the steady unravelling of flawed characters begins to make perfect sense. This character study asks big questions of its readers, about what makes us who we are, and the irrational nature of familial love. In the end I felt it was well done, and it captured my attention.
Rating: really liked it
A sharp edged examination of a family ruled by a cruel, powerful father and a cold, self-absorbed mother. Attenberg is a master at slowly revealing the lives and secrets of her damaged (and often decent) characters. I wanted to find out what happened to each one of them.
Rating: really liked it
There are a few writers who I feel write books just for me – Katherine Heiny, Curtis Sittenfeld, Kristen Iskandrian and Jami Attenberg – all American women of my generation who I feel have a definite shared sensibility that really resonates with me. I love Attenberg’s various literary devices deployed to make us consider our shared humanity, or lack thereof, and she puts them to great use here. A man like Victor was always going to be a tough character to read but I loved how rather than make this book about a bad man, Attenberg focussed on the good, if flawed, people who surrounded him. The minor characters she pulls in bring much needed respite, too. This didn’t quite hold me in its grip as tightly as some of Attenberg’s previous novels but I still loved it.
Rating: really liked it
Meh. Attenberg uses multiple perspectives, and these shifting perspectives usually aren’t meant to redeem the characters, they mostly unravel more layers of dysfunction. That was pretty good, but she often diverts from the main characters to give perspectives of very tangential characters (I mean very tangential, they would be extras in a film) which was distracting, and I don’t see what was gained.
Rating: really liked it
A very ordinary domestic drama. The characters are interesting and seem to have potential but the novel never gets off the ground. A new character is introduced 50 pages before the end of the book who has only a tangential connection to one of the main characters. Frankly, I don’t think it works and I know it didn’t work for me.
