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A review by ridgewaygirl
The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson
3.0
The Year We Left Home tells the story of the Erickson family, of Grenada, Iowa, in the last twenty-five years of the last century. Beginning with the wedding reception of the oldest daughter, Anita, at the American Legion Hall, and continuing, each chapter moving forward a few years and telling a self-contained story about a different member of the family, to end, where the children are approaching fifty. Jean Thompson writes with a clarity and an absence of fuss that is a pleasure to read. Each member of the family, as well as some members of the extended family, are beautifully brought to life, from Anita with her desire to make a success of having a family to Chip, the Vietnam veteran cousin who is having some trouble settling down. There's a quiet strength to this book, with its ordinary family trying to get by in a difficult and changing world.
That said, there are some flaws that marred my enjoyment of this book. Early on, there's a silly anachronism, where the family sits down to watch a show that won't be aired for another six years, which made me wary of believing the accuracy of the background of each chapter's events. Each story is very much oriented in time and place, so that careless mistake at the beginning had me doubting the authenticity of each story's setting. There's a sense in which this book is derivative of The Corrections; although they are very different in tone, there are enough similarities in a few of the characters to make comparisons inevitable, and The Year We Left Home is the lesser book.
That said, there are some flaws that marred my enjoyment of this book. Early on, there's a silly anachronism, where the family sits down to watch a show that won't be aired for another six years, which made me wary of believing the accuracy of the background of each chapter's events. Each story is very much oriented in time and place, so that careless mistake at the beginning had me doubting the authenticity of each story's setting. There's a sense in which this book is derivative of The Corrections; although they are very different in tone, there are enough similarities in a few of the characters to make comparisons inevitable, and The Year We Left Home is the lesser book.