Lapena, Shari. Not a Happy Family. Pamela Dorman Books, 2021.
Have you ever read a book where every single character was unlikeable and odious? Did you like it? I was about half way into this one when I realized that there wasn’t one single likeable character and I loved it!
First, there are the parents, Sheila and Fred, who spawned three children and treat them like dirt. The children, Catherine, Dan and Jenna hate their parents and each other. Fred’s sister, Audrey seems to love Fred and her dear friend Ellen and one stray cat. Ellen has a daughter, Rose, who happens to be Catherine’s only friend. Finally, the nanny turned housekeeper, Irena, is devoted to getting them to love one another.
The two detectives, Reyes and Barr, interview all the major characters, sign out warrants to search homes and cars, and run down all the leads that they find. I won’t say they are as odious as the major characters, but their personalities don’t come into play enough to actually like them or think of them as heroes.
There are also three innocent bystanders who make their way into the story, Catherine’s husband, Ted, Dan’s wife, Lisa, and Jenna’s boyfriend, Jake. They don’t do anything to make a reader like them, but they are less horrible than their significant others.
It takes about two weeks to uncover what happened that Easter Sunday night (it is kind of ironic that I read this the week before Holy Week). Reyes and Barr interview all the major players one after another and over and over to get to the truth.
The family mansion is in Brecken Hill of the fictional town of Aylesford located outside of New York City. The children do not live in Brecken Hill with their parents, but one of them would like to.
It’s not the characters or setting that makes this novel enjoyable and it isn’t really the plot either. The real star of the show is the point of view. Lapena is very masterful in creating a first person present narrator in a way that allows the reader to get inside the head of each of the characters one after another.
The reader only knows what is going on in one character’s head at a time. It isn’t written from first one person in a chapter followed by another person in the next chapter. Instead, Lapena mixes it up in each chapter, seamlessly shifting from one character’s point of view to another.
The further the reader gets into the book, the faster the point of view shifts. For instance, Chapter 59 starts from Dan’s point of view, shifts to Catherine’s, then to Ted’s, next is Lisa’s, then Reyes’, then finally to Audrey’s. One would think all that shifting would be dizzying, but on the contrary, it keeps the pace of the story moving to a resolution. It is most definitely a page turner.
I am impressed that Lapena created characters so masterfully. What they think, what they share with each other, what they share with the police grows more valuable with each meeting or interview. It is like playing a really great game of Clue to read this novel.
The book is 368 pages long with 63 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. This is Lapena’s 5th New York Time’s best seller.
This is the first of Lapena’s books that I have read, but it won’t be the last.