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The Humanity Project
After surviving a shooting at her high school, Linnea is packed off to live with her estranged father, Art, who doesn’t quite understand how he has suddenly become responsible for raising a sullen adolescent girl. Art’s neighbor, Christie, is a nurse distracted by an eccentric patient, Mrs. Foster, who has given Christie the reins to her Humanity Project, a bizarre and well-endowed charity fund. Just as mysteriously, no one seems to know where Conner, the Fosters’ handyman, goes after work, but he has become the one person Linnea can confide in, perhaps because his own home life is a war zone: his father has suffered an injury and become addicted to painkillers. As these characters and many more hurtle toward their fates, the Humanity Project is born: Can you indeed pay someone to be good? At what price?
Thompson proves herself at the height of her powers in The Humanity Project, crafting emotionally suspenseful and thoroughly entertaining characters, in which we inevitably see ourselves. Set against the backdrop of current events and cultural calamity, it is at once a multifaceted ensemble drama and a deftly observant story of our twenty-first-century society.
Thompson proves herself at the height of her powers in The Humanity Project, crafting emotionally suspenseful and thoroughly entertaining characters, in which we inevitably see ourselves. Set against the backdrop of current events and cultural calamity, it is at once a multifaceted ensemble drama and a deftly observant story of our twenty-first-century society.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published April 23, 2013
36 people are currently reading
2879 people want to read
About the author
Jean Thompson
51 books287 followersJean Thompson is a New York Times bestselling author and her new novel,
The Humanity Project
will be published by Blue Rider Press on April 23, 2013.
Thompson is also the author of the novel The Year We Left Home, the acclaimed short fiction collections Do Not Deny Me, and Throw Like a Girl as well as the novel City Boy; the short story collection Who Do You Love, and she is a 1999 National Book Award finalist for fiction as well as and the novel Wide Blue Yonder, a New York Times Notable Book and Chicago Tribune Best Fiction selection for 2002.
Her short fiction has been published in many magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, and been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize. Jean's work has been praised by Elle Magazine as "bracing and wildly intelligent writing that explores the nature of love in all its hidden and manifest dimensions."
Jean's other books include the short story collections The Gasoline Wars and Little Face, and the novels My Wisdom and The Woman Driver.
Jean has been the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, among other accolades, and taught creative writing at the University of Illinois--Champaign/ Urbana, Reed College, Northwestern University, and many other colleges and universities.
Thompson is also the author of the novel The Year We Left Home, the acclaimed short fiction collections Do Not Deny Me, and Throw Like a Girl as well as the novel City Boy; the short story collection Who Do You Love, and she is a 1999 National Book Award finalist for fiction as well as and the novel Wide Blue Yonder, a New York Times Notable Book and Chicago Tribune Best Fiction selection for 2002.
Her short fiction has been published in many magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, and been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize. Jean's work has been praised by Elle Magazine as "bracing and wildly intelligent writing that explores the nature of love in all its hidden and manifest dimensions."
Jean's other books include the short story collections The Gasoline Wars and Little Face, and the novels My Wisdom and The Woman Driver.
Jean has been the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, among other accolades, and taught creative writing at the University of Illinois--Champaign/ Urbana, Reed College, Northwestern University, and many other colleges and universities.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 255 reviews
May 13, 2013
A story about a man and son who spiral into homelessness; a teenage girl who witnesses a school shooting and is sent off to live with her Dad (because her stepfather is mad at her because she was NOT killed while his daughter was killed); a nurse who gets stuck getting involved in a crazy patient's idea of starting a "Humanity Project" endowment(in which they've considered paying people to be good). It's well written and the characters are mostly real and recognizable yet some of their misadventures are a bit whacky. It is a book about the lower middle class and how difficult it is to survive the drudgery of day to day life. It's a bleak novel about how these characters try and survive and in Christy's case (the nurse), she tries to be a better person. The teen girl, Linnea, tries to survive high school and start over in a new place. The homeless man just made bad decisions all the time, while his son does some criminal activity to survive, and the son works hard at bettering himself. It's a current story of our times, especially those who suffer under economic hardships.
April 3, 2013
I wanted to like The Humanity Project. It is beautifully written, and many of the characters really tugged at my heartstrings, but in the end, there were some things that just didn't work for me.
The book starts out very well. A 15-year-old girl, Linnea, witnesses a shooting at her high school, which takes the life of her hated step-sister. Because her mother can't seem to handle Linnea's post-shooting emotions, she is shipped off to live with Art, the father she has never known. There she comes in contact with their neighbor, Christy, who works for an eccentric would-be philanthropist, Mrs. Foster, who has a teenage handyman, Conner, who becomes Linnea's sort-of boyfriend, and who is trying to keep his painkiller-addicted father from becoming homeless.
The chapters are narrated by the different characters, and with so many of them, that can get to be disjointed. Occasionally, other characters, such as Mrs. Foster's resentful daughter, come in to narrate a chapter or two and then seem to disappear. The end result is that there is no real central point-of-view here and no one character that you are really invested in.
I was also let down by the ending. I felt like the book was going to led to some climax or revelation - but it just sort of faded out with an epilogue from Linnea.
Again, I greatly admire Thompson's skill as a writer and there is much to love about this book. But I felt like it just missed the mark.
The book starts out very well. A 15-year-old girl, Linnea, witnesses a shooting at her high school, which takes the life of her hated step-sister. Because her mother can't seem to handle Linnea's post-shooting emotions, she is shipped off to live with Art, the father she has never known. There she comes in contact with their neighbor, Christy, who works for an eccentric would-be philanthropist, Mrs. Foster, who has a teenage handyman, Conner, who becomes Linnea's sort-of boyfriend, and who is trying to keep his painkiller-addicted father from becoming homeless.
The chapters are narrated by the different characters, and with so many of them, that can get to be disjointed. Occasionally, other characters, such as Mrs. Foster's resentful daughter, come in to narrate a chapter or two and then seem to disappear. The end result is that there is no real central point-of-view here and no one character that you are really invested in.
I was also let down by the ending. I felt like the book was going to led to some climax or revelation - but it just sort of faded out with an epilogue from Linnea.
Again, I greatly admire Thompson's skill as a writer and there is much to love about this book. But I felt like it just missed the mark.
June 19, 2013
Virtually all the characters in The Humanity Project are in the process of redefining who they are and what it means to be human. They’re lonely, adrift, down on their luck, trying to reinvent themselves…even rename themselves.
Jean Thompson is first and foremost an outstanding short story writer, and in these sketches, her key talent shows through. There’s Linnea, a damaged teenager who is exiled from her home to live with her absent birth father after she witnesses the school shooting of her hated stepsister. And Connor, a handsome and good-hearted teenage hustler with a big heart, who has spent too long nurturing his injured father Sean – who is addicted to pain pills. There’s Art, Linnea’s father, a Peter Pan character who never has really grown up and accepted responsibility . And in the center of things, the is Mrs. Foster, an elderly, slightly daft widow who, along with her nurse Christie, concoct a nonprofit foundation called The Humanity Project with an audacious premise: to pay people to be good.
Can we really invest in goodness? At one point, Ms. Thompson writes, “But surely even within our brief and mortal selves, there were possibilities. Amazing transformations. Changes of luck or circumstances. And while some of these had to do with money, which might always be beyond our reach, there was also love, which was not.”
The arc of the novel might suggest that it is love, or connection, or ability to risk emotionally, that can cause transformation and reinvention…not money, which always comes at a price. The characters who grow most understand that the true currency in life is emotional, not financial.
Jean Thompson touches on the aspects of modern day living that can easily go awry: dysfunctional homelife, school bullying, cyber-dating, ill-guided do-gooders, the growing division between rich and poor. She’s at her best when she focuses squarely on the humanity of her characters; there are few writers today who can create a believable character as well as Ms. Thompson.
The novel becomes less seamless when she dives into satire (some of the names of The Humanity Project sessions are “Learning From The Rural Poor of India” or “What We Talk About When We Talk About Wealth.”) My emotional connection sagged during the foundation sections and surged again when the chapters focused on Conner, Linnea and their hapless fathers. I couldn’t help but think there were two novels in here with two disparate tones, merged together. I loved it but not quite enough.
Jean Thompson is first and foremost an outstanding short story writer, and in these sketches, her key talent shows through. There’s Linnea, a damaged teenager who is exiled from her home to live with her absent birth father after she witnesses the school shooting of her hated stepsister. And Connor, a handsome and good-hearted teenage hustler with a big heart, who has spent too long nurturing his injured father Sean – who is addicted to pain pills. There’s Art, Linnea’s father, a Peter Pan character who never has really grown up and accepted responsibility . And in the center of things, the is Mrs. Foster, an elderly, slightly daft widow who, along with her nurse Christie, concoct a nonprofit foundation called The Humanity Project with an audacious premise: to pay people to be good.
Can we really invest in goodness? At one point, Ms. Thompson writes, “But surely even within our brief and mortal selves, there were possibilities. Amazing transformations. Changes of luck or circumstances. And while some of these had to do with money, which might always be beyond our reach, there was also love, which was not.”
The arc of the novel might suggest that it is love, or connection, or ability to risk emotionally, that can cause transformation and reinvention…not money, which always comes at a price. The characters who grow most understand that the true currency in life is emotional, not financial.
Jean Thompson touches on the aspects of modern day living that can easily go awry: dysfunctional homelife, school bullying, cyber-dating, ill-guided do-gooders, the growing division between rich and poor. She’s at her best when she focuses squarely on the humanity of her characters; there are few writers today who can create a believable character as well as Ms. Thompson.
The novel becomes less seamless when she dives into satire (some of the names of The Humanity Project sessions are “Learning From The Rural Poor of India” or “What We Talk About When We Talk About Wealth.”) My emotional connection sagged during the foundation sections and surged again when the chapters focused on Conner, Linnea and their hapless fathers. I couldn’t help but think there were two novels in here with two disparate tones, merged together. I loved it but not quite enough.
January 3, 2017
4.5
Loved this book from its opening sentence to its last. Like sitting in the driver's seat of an automated car, I had every confidence that Thompson would get us where we were going, all I had to do was enjoy the view as it rolled past. If nothing else, the structure of this novel is a thing of beauty, but the characters are spot on, too.
Some goodreaders are complaining that this novel asks a question about whether we can pay people to be good, and that the novel doesn't pay it back and answer this question. I don't think the novel asks that at all, but rather this slippery thing -- this endowment called the Humanity Project, 5 million dollars of distracted good intention, asks such a ridiculous question. The novel is really asking us how reinvention, starting over with a "clean slate," has anything to do with our emotional readiness to start over, or rather how economics and class and material desire and basic needs and worries about how we fit into the social order convince us or even force us to start over. Can you be too poor to be honest, as Conner claims? Can you be too wealthy to be honest, as Mr. Kirn decides? Maybe dishonesty is part of what it means to be human, and we only judge it through a lens of wealth, the deserving and the undeserving poor, the generous and the selfish rich? It's an easier question if we've built that binary; we can't mess it up by allowing for a poor man who does kind things and selfish things, a rich woman who does kind things and selfish things.
Loved this book from its opening sentence to its last. Like sitting in the driver's seat of an automated car, I had every confidence that Thompson would get us where we were going, all I had to do was enjoy the view as it rolled past. If nothing else, the structure of this novel is a thing of beauty, but the characters are spot on, too.
Some goodreaders are complaining that this novel asks a question about whether we can pay people to be good, and that the novel doesn't pay it back and answer this question. I don't think the novel asks that at all, but rather this slippery thing -- this endowment called the Humanity Project, 5 million dollars of distracted good intention, asks such a ridiculous question. The novel is really asking us how reinvention, starting over with a "clean slate," has anything to do with our emotional readiness to start over, or rather how economics and class and material desire and basic needs and worries about how we fit into the social order convince us or even force us to start over. Can you be too poor to be honest, as Conner claims? Can you be too wealthy to be honest, as Mr. Kirn decides? Maybe dishonesty is part of what it means to be human, and we only judge it through a lens of wealth, the deserving and the undeserving poor, the generous and the selfish rich? It's an easier question if we've built that binary; we can't mess it up by allowing for a poor man who does kind things and selfish things, a rich woman who does kind things and selfish things.
October 31, 2022
“The Humanity Project”, by the inimitable Jean Thompson, was published in 2013. It probably wasn’t wise of me to pick up a novel set during the last recession/mortgage crisis/school shooting when we’re in the midst of all that misery again now, but Jean Thompson’s novels are just too good to resist!
Thompson’s genius as a writer is in her characters and their individual stories and how they eventually intersect; this style and structure serves her well and it’s the reason I bought all her novels and stories after reading and loving “A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl”.
I think this is my favorite of hers – so far!
Thompson’s genius as a writer is in her characters and their individual stories and how they eventually intersect; this style and structure serves her well and it’s the reason I bought all her novels and stories after reading and loving “A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl”.
I think this is my favorite of hers – so far!
October 18, 2021
After being involved in a catastrophic incident that will forever change her life, teen Linnea moves to California to live with her dad, Art. She has demons...BIG demons....and Art is pretty clueless on how to be a father, let alone helping Linnea through the trauma she was involved in.
The story moves on from there, bringing in a cast of characters...all flawed...aren't we all? ... and each and every one of them very believable. We meet Sean and his son, Connor, who aren't sure where to call home any longer. There's Art's neighbor, Christie, a single nurse who works hard and just knows people. Then there's Mrs. Foster, a very rich and elderly woman who comes into contact with some of these characters. Every person tells their own story in their unique voice and all of their lives are webbed together.
I didn't much care for the ending....it's was just like too perfect and buttoned up.
BUT...I absolutely LOVE Jean Thompson and am reading every one of her books. All of them have been four and five star reads; they are all marvelous. Thompson frankly just KNOWS people and gets into their hearts and souls.
A good read, check it out!
The story moves on from there, bringing in a cast of characters...all flawed...aren't we all? ... and each and every one of them very believable. We meet Sean and his son, Connor, who aren't sure where to call home any longer. There's Art's neighbor, Christie, a single nurse who works hard and just knows people. Then there's Mrs. Foster, a very rich and elderly woman who comes into contact with some of these characters. Every person tells their own story in their unique voice and all of their lives are webbed together.
I didn't much care for the ending....it's was just like too perfect and buttoned up.
BUT...I absolutely LOVE Jean Thompson and am reading every one of her books. All of them have been four and five star reads; they are all marvelous. Thompson frankly just KNOWS people and gets into their hearts and souls.
A good read, check it out!
March 24, 2013
I think I would actually give it 2.5 stars. It had a good premise and I liked how the characters all sort of connected in a haphazard way. However, I kept waiting for the two young characters to connect better...better conversations, confidements, etc and never really got that. Also, I kept waiting for them to be connected through the "Humanity Project" I kept expecting the project itself to benefit and change their lives and it doesn't, it kind of sits int he background. Some of the characters meet through the project but the project itself doesnt influence their lives or change the course or direction of it. It was kind of stretched too thin, and then it just ended, summed up in a last chapter.
August 6, 2013
This book just annoyed me. With a title like "The Humanity Project" I had high hopes. So disappointed.
The characters in the book had so many "worldly" problems I groaned many times, rolled my eyes, and just felt aggravated with every single one of the characters. The author makes light of God and religion and turns these problems as real problems (which they are, but so many could be avoided) so that just annoyed me too.
The author tied everything up nicely at the end. I guess. Not worth the read though.
The characters in the book had so many "worldly" problems I groaned many times, rolled my eyes, and just felt aggravated with every single one of the characters. The author makes light of God and religion and turns these problems as real problems (which they are, but so many could be avoided) so that just annoyed me too.
The author tied everything up nicely at the end. I guess. Not worth the read though.
November 14, 2013
Poor copy editing, magical minorities, first world problems, and nonsense.
June 4, 2021
DNF. Just not my thing. This book couldn’t keep my interest while reading.
April 9, 2013
Picked as one of our Amazon Best Book of the Month. In my Amazon review I wrote:
When a school shooting sends a damaged teen named Linnea to live with her lazy, pot-smoking father in California, she becomes immersed in a world in which everyone nurses a deep sense of economic doom and financial hopelessness. “Times were bad for everybody, everybody had it coming” writes Thompson. And this: “The world was one big goddam banana peel, waiting for you to slip on it.” One character feels like “they’d changed the rules when he wasn’t looking and drained all the good luck out of the world.” These sympathetic and recognizable people--“the overeducated and the underemployed”--lose their homes to Bank of America; suffer due to a lack of health insurance; shamble through dull, low-paying jobs; tame their sorrows with weed, Percocet, and booze as they bemoan their “shitcan” lives, their “getting-by” lives, their “waiting for the next kick in the head” lives. At times, The Humanity Project reads like the love child of Dickens and Barbara Ehrenreich. And yet, remarkably, Thompson makes us care, gives us hope, showing us that the whimsy of a few good-hearted people can inspire others to strive to become their better selves. A father can help his daughter; a son can help his father. And, while bad things can and do happen to decent (if flawed) people, the decent can fight back.
(See more of my Amazon Best of the Month reviews.)
When a school shooting sends a damaged teen named Linnea to live with her lazy, pot-smoking father in California, she becomes immersed in a world in which everyone nurses a deep sense of economic doom and financial hopelessness. “Times were bad for everybody, everybody had it coming” writes Thompson. And this: “The world was one big goddam banana peel, waiting for you to slip on it.” One character feels like “they’d changed the rules when he wasn’t looking and drained all the good luck out of the world.” These sympathetic and recognizable people--“the overeducated and the underemployed”--lose their homes to Bank of America; suffer due to a lack of health insurance; shamble through dull, low-paying jobs; tame their sorrows with weed, Percocet, and booze as they bemoan their “shitcan” lives, their “getting-by” lives, their “waiting for the next kick in the head” lives. At times, The Humanity Project reads like the love child of Dickens and Barbara Ehrenreich. And yet, remarkably, Thompson makes us care, gives us hope, showing us that the whimsy of a few good-hearted people can inspire others to strive to become their better selves. A father can help his daughter; a son can help his father. And, while bad things can and do happen to decent (if flawed) people, the decent can fight back.
(See more of my Amazon Best of the Month reviews.)
April 23, 2013
The Humanity Project is a very moving novel that relates the stories of the characters in larger story that encompasses hope, redemption, love, and resiliance. The characters in this novel include Linnea, who after surviving a high school shooting, is sent to live with her estranged father, Art, in an effort to assuage her guilt. Sean, the single father of Connor, is addicted to painkillers after an extremely serious car accident leaves him wondering what happened to his self and the driver of the vehicle. Finally we have Christie, a nurse who's asked to be the head of The Humanity Project by Mrs. Foster. Mrs. Foster is a wealthy widow who is anxious to invest in human nature and compell people to be the best human they can be.
The characters of The Humanity Project are definitely richly portrayed in their beautifully flawed selves. Thompson made me care about each person, even the bratty teenager I usually loathe. I wanted the absent father to succeed in reaching out to his daughter, I wanted the addict father to survive long enough to say thanks to his son for taking care of him and mostly, I wanted each person to beat what life was throwing at them and come out on top.
Ultimately, I'm happy that I've been given a chance to read this absorbing novel by Jean Thompson. The Humanity Project is full of great, relatable characters that have been dealt bad hands but still press on. I am more inclined now to question less why bad things happen to good people especially when I don't question why the good things happen. I would gladly recommend this book to anyone.
The characters of The Humanity Project are definitely richly portrayed in their beautifully flawed selves. Thompson made me care about each person, even the bratty teenager I usually loathe. I wanted the absent father to succeed in reaching out to his daughter, I wanted the addict father to survive long enough to say thanks to his son for taking care of him and mostly, I wanted each person to beat what life was throwing at them and come out on top.
Ultimately, I'm happy that I've been given a chance to read this absorbing novel by Jean Thompson. The Humanity Project is full of great, relatable characters that have been dealt bad hands but still press on. I am more inclined now to question less why bad things happen to good people especially when I don't question why the good things happen. I would gladly recommend this book to anyone.
March 7, 2013
I’m not good at going to a store and randomly picking a piece of fiction to read. I often decide what to read next due to it either being well reviewed or having a friend with good literary taste recommend it. I find I’m far better at predicting if I’ll like a non-fiction title just by reading the blurb on the back, so this being a fiction title that had yet been released made me nervous.
Much to my relief, I enjoyed this book from cover-to-cover. I didn’t know what to expect with its descriptors representing it as a school shooting with lots of characters. In fact, it’s the story of many people woven together (which if you have read my other reviews, you know I’m a sucker for). It’s a story about people and the good and evil which reside inside us. It raises myriad questions regarding how people become good/evil and ultimately, can we defeat the path we have taken?
Thompson’s character development of quite a few characters in the span of a relatively short book was quite impressive. Their experiences caused the themes and posed questions to unfold in a natural and thought-provoking manner. Thompson has quite the handle on her craft and left me wondering what else of hers I could get my hands on.
I greatly enjoyed reading this book by myself but I think it would be even more enriching to read this in a book club setting to fully discuss all the nuances and questions that are raised.
Much to my relief, I enjoyed this book from cover-to-cover. I didn’t know what to expect with its descriptors representing it as a school shooting with lots of characters. In fact, it’s the story of many people woven together (which if you have read my other reviews, you know I’m a sucker for). It’s a story about people and the good and evil which reside inside us. It raises myriad questions regarding how people become good/evil and ultimately, can we defeat the path we have taken?
Thompson’s character development of quite a few characters in the span of a relatively short book was quite impressive. Their experiences caused the themes and posed questions to unfold in a natural and thought-provoking manner. Thompson has quite the handle on her craft and left me wondering what else of hers I could get my hands on.
I greatly enjoyed reading this book by myself but I think it would be even more enriching to read this in a book club setting to fully discuss all the nuances and questions that are raised.
June 7, 2013
I'm really confused by this book. Overall, I liked it, although the title I think is somewhat misleading as is the description of the book. I'm not sure why they chose to call it The Humanity Project, as it seems like very little of the book actually has to do with this. I kept waiting for it to be a more integral part of the story and it didn't happen. Also it talked about the mission of this foundation and the possibility of paying people to be good, and that went absolutely no where. So... I found it a bit disappointing but i was interested through the whole thing too. Just feeling conflicted on whether I really liked it or not.
April 20, 2013
Let the Great World Spin, A Visit from the Goon Squad, all the novels that have landed on the shelves in bookshops riding the wave of the Emotional and Surprising Power of Our Intertwining Fates. I get it. And I'll admit to having gone into this having been unable to get into Thompson's writing in the past despite it being assured and well-crafted but the characters never transformed from names on the page into anyone I could care about, let alone in whom I could invest.
February 7, 2023
started off really boring then got good and then got bad again
April 26, 2013
I'd rate this book 3.5 stars.
It takes a skilled author to create flawed characters that interest you and cause you to empathize with them even if you don't necessarily sympathize with them. But in Jean Thompson's new novel, The Humanity Project, a meditation on the flaws that make us human and an examination of whether or not we can redeem ourselves after doing something wrong, she does just that. I don't know that I'd want to spend any appreciable amount of time with any of these characters, but they definitely intrigued me enough to keep reading about them.
Linnea Kooperman survives the trauma of a shooting in her high school, but her guilt about surviving (among other things) leads her into more emotional troubles and unstable behavior than her mother and stepfather can handle, so they send her to California to live with her estranged father, Art, whom she hasn't seen since she was very young. Art has never quite grown up himself, a fact which has hampered him from significant success career-wise or relationship-wise, so he is ill-prepared for the sudden responsibilities of being a full-time parent, especially to a challenging teenager like Linnea. Art's neighbor, Christie, is a nurse constantly searching for her psychic center, when she is challenged by one of her patients, Mrs. Foster, who wants Christie to run The Humanity Project, a nebulous charitable foundation with the somewhat auspicious mission of trying to make humanity better.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Foster's new handyman/houseboy, Conner, has problems of his own. He had to short circuit completing his education and pursuing a future when his father is injured in an accident and becomes addicted to painkillers. Conner finds it difficult having to switch roles and responsibilities with his father, and often wishes he could just go back to a "normal" life—finish high school, go to college, pursue romantic relationships, and have a typical future everyone else seems to. His interactions with Linnea perplex him, frustrate him, and yet give him the opportunity to confide in someone else about some of the burdens he faces.
Each of the characters' lives intersect in many different ways, and Thompson explores the idea of what makes us good or bad, and can people truly be classified as one or the other? It's an interesting concept, and Thompson weaves an interesting story, but it never quite hooked me the way I hoped it would. I kept expecting something significant to happen, to feel as if the story Thompson was telling led me to answers for one of the many questions she explores. It wasn't the characters' flaws that alienated me; it was the fact that the characters never fully opened up until the very end of the story, if at all.
I read Thompson's last book, The Year We Left Home, just about two years ago, and as with that book, nothing earth-shattering happens (much like life for most people), but her writing is still worth reading.
It takes a skilled author to create flawed characters that interest you and cause you to empathize with them even if you don't necessarily sympathize with them. But in Jean Thompson's new novel, The Humanity Project, a meditation on the flaws that make us human and an examination of whether or not we can redeem ourselves after doing something wrong, she does just that. I don't know that I'd want to spend any appreciable amount of time with any of these characters, but they definitely intrigued me enough to keep reading about them.
Linnea Kooperman survives the trauma of a shooting in her high school, but her guilt about surviving (among other things) leads her into more emotional troubles and unstable behavior than her mother and stepfather can handle, so they send her to California to live with her estranged father, Art, whom she hasn't seen since she was very young. Art has never quite grown up himself, a fact which has hampered him from significant success career-wise or relationship-wise, so he is ill-prepared for the sudden responsibilities of being a full-time parent, especially to a challenging teenager like Linnea. Art's neighbor, Christie, is a nurse constantly searching for her psychic center, when she is challenged by one of her patients, Mrs. Foster, who wants Christie to run The Humanity Project, a nebulous charitable foundation with the somewhat auspicious mission of trying to make humanity better.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Foster's new handyman/houseboy, Conner, has problems of his own. He had to short circuit completing his education and pursuing a future when his father is injured in an accident and becomes addicted to painkillers. Conner finds it difficult having to switch roles and responsibilities with his father, and often wishes he could just go back to a "normal" life—finish high school, go to college, pursue romantic relationships, and have a typical future everyone else seems to. His interactions with Linnea perplex him, frustrate him, and yet give him the opportunity to confide in someone else about some of the burdens he faces.
Each of the characters' lives intersect in many different ways, and Thompson explores the idea of what makes us good or bad, and can people truly be classified as one or the other? It's an interesting concept, and Thompson weaves an interesting story, but it never quite hooked me the way I hoped it would. I kept expecting something significant to happen, to feel as if the story Thompson was telling led me to answers for one of the many questions she explores. It wasn't the characters' flaws that alienated me; it was the fact that the characters never fully opened up until the very end of the story, if at all.
I read Thompson's last book, The Year We Left Home, just about two years ago, and as with that book, nothing earth-shattering happens (much like life for most people), but her writing is still worth reading.
August 29, 2013
I read this book because it was set in Marin County, where I live, and being a stereotypical self-centered, pot-smoking, tree-hugging, granola-eating Marinite, I thought it would be a fun summer read to hear how the author illustrated the Marinated in the 2010's. (OK yes it's true that I do volunteer a lot, and eat granola, and have a hot tub, one stereotype overlooked among the Marin characters... but not all of us smoke pot, as depicted in this book!)
Not a fun read - definitely a dark tone throughout these intersecting stories of Marinites. The various characters' stories intersected just too coincidentally, I thought it was too far-fetched that all the people would have been connected in the ways revealed by the end of the book. The Humanity Project wasn't ever fleshed out fully, and I just didn't enjoy her writing style. I ended up finishing the book but feeling very unresolved by the story ending. Glancing at a few other reviews of this book, maybe I missed something that so many others enjoyed? Then again, I didn't enjoy Fifty Shades of Grey.
At least I can compare notes with any other self-centered Marin friends looking for affirmation about ourselves in this novel... (which they won't find.)
Not a fun read - definitely a dark tone throughout these intersecting stories of Marinites. The various characters' stories intersected just too coincidentally, I thought it was too far-fetched that all the people would have been connected in the ways revealed by the end of the book. The Humanity Project wasn't ever fleshed out fully, and I just didn't enjoy her writing style. I ended up finishing the book but feeling very unresolved by the story ending. Glancing at a few other reviews of this book, maybe I missed something that so many others enjoyed? Then again, I didn't enjoy Fifty Shades of Grey.
At least I can compare notes with any other self-centered Marin friends looking for affirmation about ourselves in this novel... (which they won't find.)
July 6, 2013
This book is a snippet of lives that intersect with one another to ultimately tell a story of our fragile human qualities. The characters are appealing - a daughter who witnesses a shooting at her school, whose father is quite clumsy in the area of relationships, who has a neighbor who nurses a lonely rich woman who begins a foundation that helps a homeless man who is the father of a son who struggles to make it in the world who dates a girl who has moved in with her father after she witnesses a tragedy at her school in another state (ah, see how that worked?) There are more characters intertwined that are fun to keep track of to see if you can make the connections first before they are laid out for you. I certainly do appreciate the writer's ability to put it altogether. Somehow, this book left me wanting, though. I wanted more of the girl who witnessed the shooting and I wanted more of the mother of the boy who did the shooting, who showed up for just a few pages as a date of one of the main characters. I wanted more of the characters we just received glimpses of and less of the ones we learned too much about. I suppose this book could keep going forever, kind of a six separations kind of thing. Maybe if we kept going, Kevin Bacon would have eventually appeared, who knows?
February 22, 2013
The plot revolves around the messy lives of two Northern California divorced single fathers who each are raising a teenager. Sean's house is going into foreclosure as he struggles to find work and battles his addition to painkillers after an accident. His son Conner tries petty thievery before he is given employment doing odd jobs for a wealthy widow, Mrs. Foster. Art, a part-time college instructor, has played no part in his daughter Linnea's life until she moves in with him after becoming a disciplinary problem caused by her guilt at surviving a high school shooting in Ohio. Their lives converge when Mrs. Foster decides to create a philanthropic foundation called The Humanity Project. She asks her nurse, Christie (who is Art's friend and neighbor) to run the organization.
Christie is the wisest and most principled of the many characters. The others make poor decisions, have misadventures, get themselves into dangerous (and sometimes humorous) situations, and fail each other. Nevertheless, I could not help but root for them as they transform. Ultimately, the novel is a tale of hope and redemption.
Christie is the wisest and most principled of the many characters. The others make poor decisions, have misadventures, get themselves into dangerous (and sometimes humorous) situations, and fail each other. Nevertheless, I could not help but root for them as they transform. Ultimately, the novel is a tale of hope and redemption.
May 17, 2013
I really enjoy and admire Jean Thompson's prose. I kept reading this book because of that. But, for the book as a whole, I'm not sure what to make of the unending sadness, unhappiness, and misery of the characters. Life certainly has those periods for everyone, but reading this is not a cheery proposition. There were times that the writing and story lines reminded me of something that T.Coraghessan Boyle might have done. This is not a bad reference, as I also like Boyle's writing a lot.
The different story lines include 15 year old Linnea, who is packed off to live with her estranged father, Art, after she survives a shcool shooting. Christie, Art's neighbor and a nurse, has been given the job of running a philanthropic fund named The Humanity Project. Christie's eccentric patient, Mrs. Foster, who keeps feral cats in her home, is endowing this fund. More characters whose stories are interconnected are Conner, who does odd jobs for Mrs. Foster, and his luckless father, Sean. The headline from a review of this book in the NY Times was titled "Life Stinks, but It's Still Precious". That about sums it up.
The different story lines include 15 year old Linnea, who is packed off to live with her estranged father, Art, after she survives a shcool shooting. Christie, Art's neighbor and a nurse, has been given the job of running a philanthropic fund named The Humanity Project. Christie's eccentric patient, Mrs. Foster, who keeps feral cats in her home, is endowing this fund. More characters whose stories are interconnected are Conner, who does odd jobs for Mrs. Foster, and his luckless father, Sean. The headline from a review of this book in the NY Times was titled "Life Stinks, but It's Still Precious". That about sums it up.
February 6, 2013
Jean Thompson has a way of getting to the heart of her characters, flawed people trying to do their best in a world not always kind. Here she shifts perspective from individuals, linked through proximity or circumstance. Linnea survives a shooting at her high school; she is left feeling guilty and tarnished by her enmity to one of the victims. She is sent to live with her father, Art, a man unprepared for and confused by the challenges in raising a troubled teenager on his own. Art lives next door to Christie, a nurse for an eccentric wealthy woman, Mrs. Forster, running a charity, The Humanity Project. Connor, Mrs. Forster’s handyman, lives with his single Dad, Sean, an out of work regular guy facing the loss of his home. Each of these characters faces challenges trying to survive as best they can. Gently touched with humor, the story gives a human perspective to issues of the day while entertaining.
December 25, 2022
HAMMERING A JIGSAW
I enjoy stories told from multiple points of view, with various crossover and interlacing plot lines… This should be one of those. It fails
The character development is managed well enough, but the writing style of the stories makes it feel a clunky, disconnected read, so you spend a fair amount of time piecing bits together. The lack of fluidity makes it a struggle to enjoy, as even when there are well-written parts, they don’t flow
As an over-arching theme, the idea of humanity and altruism doesn’t land. At no point does it feel like there’s a reckoning or conclusion reached for any of the characters
All-in-all, this feels like completing a jigsaw by hammering the ill-fitting pieces together, regardless of the final outcome, and saying it’s complete
I enjoy stories told from multiple points of view, with various crossover and interlacing plot lines… This should be one of those. It fails
The character development is managed well enough, but the writing style of the stories makes it feel a clunky, disconnected read, so you spend a fair amount of time piecing bits together. The lack of fluidity makes it a struggle to enjoy, as even when there are well-written parts, they don’t flow
As an over-arching theme, the idea of humanity and altruism doesn’t land. At no point does it feel like there’s a reckoning or conclusion reached for any of the characters
All-in-all, this feels like completing a jigsaw by hammering the ill-fitting pieces together, regardless of the final outcome, and saying it’s complete
June 6, 2013
I liked it. I didn't love it, and I don't think it'll be a book that lingers with me for years and years. Thompson does a good job with her many characters, and each one seems strong and distinct. The problem was I didn't get to know any of them well enough. Her narrative skips around between at least five characters, at times leaving one in a cliff-hanger chapter ending that's resolved off-stage (or not referred to again).
The book does bring up questions about humanity and exactly how far we are supposed to go to help one another, but I didn't feel like any of the characters really made any progress with those questions, with the possible exception of Christie.
So, yeah, it was okay but not great.
The book does bring up questions about humanity and exactly how far we are supposed to go to help one another, but I didn't feel like any of the characters really made any progress with those questions, with the possible exception of Christie.
So, yeah, it was okay but not great.
August 28, 2014
Had to force myself to finish this book and skimmed a lot of it. The title made me think that there would be such a thing as a humanity project and that that would be an interesting concept and theme. Instead the book was populated by mostly unlikable characters who were extremely annoying and hapless: an adult pot head loser who smokes pot with his kid, parents who got rid of their children cos they were in their way; sullen teens; a teen psychopath; loser woman meeting men on-line and treating them badly; lazy people. About 3/4 of the way through, the humanity project is mentioned by a well intentioned but uninformed woman who has inherited a lot of $. She has an awful daughter, of course. They have a silly conference. Nothing happens! No project! Nothing!
April 24, 2016
I didn't care for this book. It started off with much promise, but left you hanging with too many unanswered questions. The characters were good but their relationship among each other was so disjointed. There was a 6 degrees of separation of how all of them ended being part of one another's lives. Conclusion, even though The humanity project was supposed to be about a Charity organization set up by Mrs. Foster, you never felt like there was any real direction to it. I guess because of the book taking you through the characters' lives and their quest to survive and find meaning or purpose in their lives.
Sorry, I wouldn't recommend this too anyone.
Sorry, I wouldn't recommend this too anyone.
October 8, 2017
One of those times when I wished there was a 3.5. I enjoyed the book. Agree with one of the reviewers that the ending was unsatisfactory and why I didn't give a 4. All the characters were well developed. One general comment. What is the difference between a review and a synopsis? I look for how you felt about a book and why.
March 15, 2013
I received this book in a goodreads first reads giveaway.
A surprisingly optimistic story, for a novel that begins with a school shooting. Lots of very distinct/memorable/sometimes eccentric characters, even the minor ones. My only real issue is that I felt the epilogue was maybe a bit too tidy.
A surprisingly optimistic story, for a novel that begins with a school shooting. Lots of very distinct/memorable/sometimes eccentric characters, even the minor ones. My only real issue is that I felt the epilogue was maybe a bit too tidy.
June 17, 2013
In the blurb above the question posed is can we pay people to do/be good. That's what I wanted to know-that was the story I wanted to read. Spoiler alert-the Humanity Project hasn't even really started by the book's end.
June 17, 2013
A deceptively simple novel that reads as a succinct and modern Dickens tale. I enjoyed the story and Thompson's writing very much. Highly recommend. I'm going to go and read Thompson's other novels now--I'm excited to have found her work.
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