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There are currently 26 member reviews
for Fatherland
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Janet K. (Mountain Top, PA)
Interesting read
I enjoy a book about the family dynamic and this one sounded interesting to me. It grabbed me in the beginning but lost me a little halfway through. All in all it does show how one family members decisions can effect the rest of the family for a lifetime.
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Toby G. (Chapel Hill, NC)
A little sketchy
A readable narrative but certainly not the most engrossing. I felt like something was missing the whole time I read this...the characters all seemed vaguely amorphous.
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Laura P. (Atlanta, GA)
A mixed bag
The central story line of Victoria Shorr's fifth book is the effects of a father's abandonment of his family, with most of the story focused on his oldest child, Josie, who is 6 at the time he walks out. Martin Brier is a prominent doctor with a beautiful wife, a lovely home and three children, the youngest just 8 months old. The story follows the reactions and impacts of Martin's behavior on his wife and his daughter (with some references to his sons, who were younger when he left) until after his death 50 years later, in 1996. Shorr does a good job of identifying the impacts, and of weaving them into a compelling story.
However, the story is told in discreet chunks, with long time gaps between, so that while the reader learns how the characters have evolved over time, one doesn't have a good grasp on the "why" of the evolution and the characters come to feel rather shallow. There's also a lot of contextualizing -- stories about the decline of manufacturing in the Rust Belt -- that feels a little overdone. It's helpful in giving the story a sense of time and place, but detracts from the main theme . The book is an easy and quick read, and Martin makes a good villain, but on the whole I wouldn't give the book a strong recommendation.
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Kammie Sue B. (Wayland, NY)
Fatherland
This book makes me wonder can money buy happiness but at what price do we buy it. When it costs us our family, and our lives that we reinvent when life does not serve the purposes we want and that we get selfish and that we sacriface the people who loved, supported us, that we change the script. This book could benefited from a family tree and the point of view more clearly written. I did like that family dynamics affect us in every culture and in previous years. and if the book was called Motherland , would we see a different perspectives from the sons and the father.
This book reminds me of a quote from Lee Iacocca, who changed his given name to accommodate to a world that judged people on the basis of heritage, and not willing to accept individuality. "No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished? This also means to me that we don't have to struggle by ourselves, we need to be our own person but not at the sacrifice of hurting loved ones in the process, but ultimate what is the cause of reinventing ourselves, when we walk away from the first people we meet on this journey.
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Susan U. (Waukesha, WI)
DNF
Im sorry, but I just couldn't handle this book about a sleezy man who leaves his wife and 3 kids. Maybe just bad timing. I always appreciate the advance books and do my best to read but this guy was so unlikeable I just couldn't give him the time.
