Book Summary and Reviews of The Best We Could Hope For by Nicola Kraus

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Cloggie Downunder

A thought-provoking, engaging and insightful read.
The Best We Could Hope For is the ninth stand-alone novel by American author, Nicola Kraus. In 1943, four-year-old Jayne Linden grazes her knee and is told by her mother, Margaret, “You’re fine”. In identical circumstances, in 1979, Jayne says the same to her four-year-old daughter, Linden. At four, Jayne is told to look out for two-year-old Bunny, whom she feels is favoured by her father.

Widowed young, Margaret was raising two boys alone when Joe Linden proposed, and her overriding raison d’etre was to appear to be a good wife and mother. Dutifully, Jayne excels at school, goes to college, meets journalism student Rodger Donoghue and marries. While she’s at Radcliffe, she learns that sixteen-year-old Bunny has run away.

A letter to Jayne some months later locates her in Georgia, but when she tells Margaret, who has always excelled at “distinguishing briskly between those who truly deserve aid from the Auxiliary and those who just made poor choices”, it’s made clear that no mention of her younger sister is welcome, because Bunny has made her choices.

In 1972, with Rodger trying to build his career, Jayne ends up quitting her museum when Bunny deposits her three young children, Sage, Huck and Barry, each from a different father, with the sister she knows will care for them. Instantly a mother of three, Jayne copes. In fact, copes well, and births two of her own: Linden and Clyde.

But when Bunny returns, it sets off a cascade of events: infidelity, divorce, a custody battle over the five children, and an accusation of child molestation that splits the family and results in many years of estrangement. Even acknowledging the plasticity of memory, the astute reader may recall a snippet of information that casts doubt on the accusation. Is that skepticism justified?

Trying to learn the truth, Lin observes “Jayne’s world is cut into neat categories – good, bad, with me, against me – and Lin is starting to suspect that sanity might be the ability to hold a dichotomy, embrace paradox. Perhaps you love your sister and hate your sister – but if you only hold one of these truths, where does that leave you?”

Kraus gives the reader a sad and sometimes dark tale of dysfunctional families that spans almost seventy years, populated by characters with depth, if not always appeal. A thought-provoking, engaging and insightful read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Little A / Verve Books

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