It was OK. ( )

Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty is a strange, quiet tale full of juicy insight and extravagantly gorgeous arrangements of words. Superb. ( )

I admired this more than I enjoyed it -- the writing is very fine but I was so worried about the kids I could hardly stand to read it. Some interesting things to say about a marriage in crisis but I think it might have worked better as a short story. ( )

Thanks to Goodreads and the publisher for a free copy of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty!

This book follows a wealthy, old money family who finds that their fortune has run out. Faced with the prospect of actually working to maintain their standard of living, the parents fall apart, have affairs, and take off, leaving their small children to fend for themselves.

So, this is a tricky book to rate. Their nine-year-old daughter Cricket's chapters -- five stars right there, no question. I could have read an entire book about Cricket, her school, and her younger siblings, and I would have loved every page of it.

But the chapters about the parents? Oh, wow, I spent the better part of the novel wanting to reach through the words and shake them. You mean you might have to get a job in a high-up position with a steel company, just to make a living? The horror. They felt realistic and three-dimensional... but just in a way that made me want to roll my eyes.

That's not to say that those sections weren't good. The writing is gorgeous -- I kept on rereading sections to try and absorb the beauty of the sentences.

I just... didn't like the parents, that's all, and it affected my opinion of the rest of the book. I'll definitely be picking up more of Ramona Ausubel's books, though! ( )

For awhile now, I've been unable to appreciate novels about the travails of young, beautiful and rich white people. There are so many of them and I question how taking the least interesting people and situations will make for a novel that breaks new ground and is compelling enough to spend several hours with.

Apparently, it can be done. Ramona Ausubel has written a book called Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, in which a wealthy, happy family is sent into a tailspin when it's discovered that the money has all been spent. Fern and Edgar have three happy children and a lot of money. They have a summer house on an island and the sailboat to go with it. They spend entire summers there, unfettered by jobs or obligations. Fern's parents are old money, and it's from them that the money flows, money earned generations ago from rum and slaves and cotton, but this was long enough ago to have erased the guilt that might have gone with that.

To their friends and children both, generations to come told the story of the abolitionist over the story of his father, proud of the relative who had fought on the side of right. They did not speak of the fact that in order for a family to free their slaves they must first have owned them. They did not stop spending the money that had been earned with the help of bodies, bought and sold. It was that money that furnished every single thing in their good American lives.

When they discover the money has all been spent, the only solution apparent to Fern is that Edgar must finally take up the reins of his father's steel mills, a fate he's been running from all his life. Edgar is the kind of person I'd dream of punching in the neck if I met him at a party and he started in with his usual rant of how he despises money, delivered while wearing the privilege that allows him to hate what he doesn't have to earn. But in a novel, he's a fascinating character. And that's what Ausubel does, with beautiful writing and a real understanding of her characters, she paints a portrait of people who aren't necessarily sympathetic, but they are understandable. There are also the children, especially Cricket, the daughter, who is forced into the role of caretaker to her two younger brothers when her parents spin out of control.

Ausubel is a true storyteller and I look forward to reading everything by her I can find. There are ways in which this book reminded me of Anne Patchett's Commonwealth, another novel I loved. ( )