This novel has so many different themes--family tragedy, hoarding, "late-blooming lesbianism," incest, quasi-incest, drug-dealing, extra-marital affairs-- to say nothing of the three different time frames and multiple physical settings interwoven,that if I were just reading
…more about the book, rather than having read it, I might wonder how it can hang together as a cohesive narrative.
But Jewell makes it work and keeps the reader caring about the characters and story lines. It would be hard to summarize without "spoilers," but I would note that ultimately, there is a redemptive quality to this novel. A family torn apart by a singular tragedy comes to rebuild itself with new structures and new interrelationships over the course of twenty years. Late in the novel, one of the daughters (Meg) says:"This is the real world. We are real people. This is real life. And things sometimes happen that don't fit in with how we think the story should go, but we just have to take a deep breath and get on with it, not sit in the corner sulking because it's not what we were hoping for." That about sums up what the reader will find in "The House We Grew Up In." (less)