Hunt Becker’s family means a lot to him, but now his older son Sean is off to college while his younger son, Todd (a star football player), is finding his own feet as a near-adult. His wife Leah is uncertain about their relationship, worried about a perceived lack of connection. She is not certain whether she wants to reconnect, to find solace elsewhere, or to separate completely. He himself is an artist with some modest success, a student who wants very much to become his lover, and a deep uncertainty about who he is and where he fits into his family, his art, and the world. Throughout this book, Hunt struggles with those questions through a set of dramatic events: accidents that injure his sons and himself, his wife questioning their marriage and finding solace in her relationship with another man, his relationship with another artist who questions and challenges his work, and a commission to paint a portrait for a quirky and unpredictable celebrity.
David Kranes’s FAMILY MATTERS captures Hunt’s confusion and disassociation with the alternately dreamy and violent tone of the book. It switches between dramatic catastrophes—car crashes, windsurfing accidents, even an exploding mirror frame—and Hunt’s uncertain, perplexed wanderings and artistic experiments. The combination feels almost as if Hunt is in perpetual danger of fading away, unless he keeps himself grounded in the realities of paint and blood, love and grief. As Hunt himself thinks, “Still, ruin wasn’t his need. Obliteration? No, what he needed was to be in the painting, the best painting that would include him. And then, of course—modesty aside—to have painted it himself.” It’s a feeling both compelling and disturbing, and the immersive focus on Hunt’s inner life makes it seem as if Hunt’s identity crisis becomes our own.
FAMILY MATTERS is a powerful book, but not one for people who need a defined plot with a clear direction and a clear resolution. It’s unfocused, but it’s meant to be. It mirrors Hunt’s own lack of focus and connection, or as Leah puts it, “Our lives have no plot. Day to day, I don’t know who you’ll be.” Despite that, the perspective of the novel gives us a direct link to Hunt’s emotions: forceful, frustrated, tender, and alternately heartbreaking and life-affirming. The reader gets to learn a good deal about who Hunt is, even as he struggles with his own sense of identity, and to care about him—empathizing directly with his emotional battles. It’s a contradiction worthy of an artist. The reader who enjoys a deep and thoughtful character study, and favors a focus on internal emotional conflict over a carefully structured storyline, will enjoy this book.
A dreamy and meandering tale punctuated by dramatic and painful events, David Kranes’s FAMILY MATTERS perfectly captures the protagonist’s feeling of disassociation from reality, separation from his family, and longing for connection.
~ Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader