BookBrowse Reviews The Laments by George Hagen

'A funny, touching 1st novel about the meaning of family, with an oddly high body count.'

Hagen's debut novel follows the lives of the Laments, a white South African family through the 1950s to the 1970s and across four continents - from South Africa to Rhodesia, to the Persian Gulf, to England and finally to the USA. Most of the reviews for this book have been very positive, for example Janet Maslin writing in the New York Times says 'Mr. Hagen has shaped an affectionate family portrait in which the characters come vividly to life, no matter how adrift they may be.' The least positive viewpoint comes from Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post who, in a long and generally fairly neutral review, ends with the comment that 'the novel reads easily and pleasantly, but once it ends you're left with the sensation of having been on a long journey that never went anywhere in particular.'

This review first ran in the July 20, 2005 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.