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Tinderbox
When you invite a stranger into your home, you never know who's really coming in . . .
Myra is a Manhattan psychotherapist. A quick study and an excellent judge of character, she thinks she knows what she's getting when she hires a nanny—it's her job, after all, to analyze people. Her phobia-addled son has just moved back in with his wife and child, and the new nanny, Eva, seems like a perfect addition: she cleans like a demon and irons like a dream, and she forms an immediate bond with Myra's grandson.
But as Eva, a Peruvian immigrant, reveals more of herself, what seemed a felicitous arrangement turns ominous. She racks the household with screams from a night terror. She spits in her hands to ward off evil spirits. Then, one afternoon, she settles into Myra's patient chair and begins to expose the secrets of her past. Their relationship slowly and inexorably becomes too close, too dependent, and, ultimately, terrifyingly destructive. As events spiral out of Myra's control, she learns that even a family as close-knit as her own can have plenty to hide.
In the rich tradition of Lionel Shriver, Jane Hamilton, and Anne Tyler, the psychoanalyst and novelist Lisa Gornick tells us a story about the tragedy of good intentions. Tinderbox spins a suspenseful mystery of hidden traumas. It's a searingly perceptive, deeply honest novel about families and secrets, and power, and love.
Myra is a Manhattan psychotherapist. A quick study and an excellent judge of character, she thinks she knows what she's getting when she hires a nanny—it's her job, after all, to analyze people. Her phobia-addled son has just moved back in with his wife and child, and the new nanny, Eva, seems like a perfect addition: she cleans like a demon and irons like a dream, and she forms an immediate bond with Myra's grandson.
But as Eva, a Peruvian immigrant, reveals more of herself, what seemed a felicitous arrangement turns ominous. She racks the household with screams from a night terror. She spits in her hands to ward off evil spirits. Then, one afternoon, she settles into Myra's patient chair and begins to expose the secrets of her past. Their relationship slowly and inexorably becomes too close, too dependent, and, ultimately, terrifyingly destructive. As events spiral out of Myra's control, she learns that even a family as close-knit as her own can have plenty to hide.
In the rich tradition of Lionel Shriver, Jane Hamilton, and Anne Tyler, the psychoanalyst and novelist Lisa Gornick tells us a story about the tragedy of good intentions. Tinderbox spins a suspenseful mystery of hidden traumas. It's a searingly perceptive, deeply honest novel about families and secrets, and power, and love.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2013
20 people are currently reading
1817 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Gornick
6 books124 followersLisa Gornick has been hailed by NPR as "one of the most perceptive, compassionate writers of fiction in America...immensely talented and brave." She is the author of an upcoming novel, ANA TURNS (Turner Publishing, November 7), as well as THE PEACOCK FEAST (FSG), LOUISA MEETS BEAR (FSG), TINDERBOX (FSG), and A PRIVATE SORCERY (Algonquin). Her stories and essays have appeared widely, including in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Paris Review, Real Simple, and Slate. A graduate of the Yale clinical psychology program and the psychoanalytic training program at Columbia, where she is on the faculty, she was for many years a practicing psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. She lives in New York City with her family. You can learn more about Lisa and her work at lisagornickauthor.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
November 5, 2013
This didn't resonate with me. Many of the characters' actions made no sense, and I felt like I didn't understand them as well as I should have. Part of the problem could be that from the very beginning, I didn't like the author's style ... I had to read the very first paragraph about 6 times before I could follow it (I had real trouble with the vast number of phrases she'd use in single sentences, especially when they didn't seem to be placed in the proper locations). Too many issues were left unresolved. The tinderbox theme was a clever and interesting one, but not developed as much as I would have liked. That said, once I got used to the style as well as could be expected, it was a quick read and I did find myself liking some of the characters.
October 9, 2013
The author is quite brilliant and her story-telling abilities are great, but my problem here lies with the story she chose to tell. It's so odd. The in-depth background on groups of Jewish Spaniards that live in the Amazon and on Western movies was strange and tangential. Finally, two of her main characters were incredibly unlikeable, almost gross in many ways, and reading about them was unpleasant. Her descriptions were spot on, but why focus on such unlikeable people?
July 6, 2013
This is that rare book-- a page-turner that is also heartfelt, illuminating, highly intelligent, and ultimately deeply hopeful. A agree with "Jersey reader" that it would make an excellent book-club book. It is also a book you might want to read on a long journey--meaty enough to engage you at many levels, and also engrossing. The book has a complicated plot and deep, psychological characterizations; I was able to read this as an Advanced Reader's Copy--and look forward to buying the book when it comes out so I can have a hard copy to place on my book shelf. I'll attempt to summarize the main themes and plot in the hope that other readers will feel tantalized enough to pick up the book for themselves.
When a troubled, Peruvian nanny comes into the lives of a privileged, New York City family, she taps into a set of complex dynamics, with explosive results. Tinderbox takes us on a journey into the colorful, fraught psyches of a rich array of characters and through their intertwined relationships, illuminating the worlds they inhabit. Lisa Gornick weaves a taut narrative, alive with psychological insight and lush with physical detail that renders all her settings exotic, from the Upper West Side, with its anxious strivings and strained, familial conflicts, to a series of raw, Peruvian jungle- and cityscapes.
One of the novel’s greatest achievements is the way in which the story of a family’s unraveling is also a story of familial unity and triumph. The reader is left hotly aware of one of nature’s brutal truths—that growth sometimes depends on a fiery scorching to the ground.
When a troubled, Peruvian nanny comes into the lives of a privileged, New York City family, she taps into a set of complex dynamics, with explosive results. Tinderbox takes us on a journey into the colorful, fraught psyches of a rich array of characters and through their intertwined relationships, illuminating the worlds they inhabit. Lisa Gornick weaves a taut narrative, alive with psychological insight and lush with physical detail that renders all her settings exotic, from the Upper West Side, with its anxious strivings and strained, familial conflicts, to a series of raw, Peruvian jungle- and cityscapes.
One of the novel’s greatest achievements is the way in which the story of a family’s unraveling is also a story of familial unity and triumph. The reader is left hotly aware of one of nature’s brutal truths—that growth sometimes depends on a fiery scorching to the ground.
October 14, 2013
This is one of those books that I felt like I should be getting more out of than I actually did. You know? I purposely didn't look at the other reviews first for this reason.
Overall the book was just fine for me. There was more telling than showing and not a lot of dialogue, so I had trouble staying vested. The first quarter was slow and then it began to pick up. There was definitely a building of suspense and I was very curious to see how it all would end. I'm not sure how I felt about the resolution.
Favorite quote:
"What () did was what fire does in the forest. She cleared the tangled underbrush: protection against greater catastrophe, protection for a new season's growth. "
I think that was the main crux of the book- that sometimes destruction that ravages lives clears the way for heartier, stronger, more beautiful growth. Out of the ashes and ruins comes beauty.
October 11, 2013
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in strong characters, plots that carry the reader along to satisfying conclusions, and thought-provoking, resonant themes. Gornick has extraordinary insight into why people behave the way they do, and affection for her all-too-human creations. As a writer, I'm impressed by the fullness of their biographies, which made me care about them even when they behaved in ways that are counter-productive at best, and self-destructive at worst. Also, the central theme of what an all-consuming fire leaves in its wake has stayed with me in a way, and altered the way I look at sweeping change in a way that all writers hope their works will affect their readers. Bravo, Ms. Gornick!
August 3, 2017
Loved the writing and the addition of a variety of themes...touched my intellect and my heart. Characters, on the whole, weren't the "cookie cutter" variety often found in "book club" books... Just my opinion...but I enjoyed this novel more than a lot of the ones I have read of late. Several characters were predictable...but not to the degree that it took away from the novel.
October 1, 2013
The author peels the veneer off each character with the turn of every page to reveal another layer of their personality and who they really are. The interaction of these characters cross all social and economic barriers and create the tension that moves the story. Each character in the book reveals as much if not more about the reader as it does about the character.
I could not help thinking that if this book is a psychological thriller then it is at the top of the genre. However, I think this book is something more and might be the beginning of a new genre in contemporary American literature. Is the dialog between one character and another or is it a triangle between two characters and the reader? Does the story move because of the action of the characters or because of the peeling away of the layers of themselves by contact with one another through the readers lens?
I look forward to reading the comments about this book to see if every reader is experiencing it the same way. Somehow I don’t think so.
I could not help thinking that if this book is a psychological thriller then it is at the top of the genre. However, I think this book is something more and might be the beginning of a new genre in contemporary American literature. Is the dialog between one character and another or is it a triangle between two characters and the reader? Does the story move because of the action of the characters or because of the peeling away of the layers of themselves by contact with one another through the readers lens?
I look forward to reading the comments about this book to see if every reader is experiencing it the same way. Somehow I don’t think so.
December 5, 2013
What a coup Gornick's Tinderbox is! Written with the intensity and the wisdom of both of her careers as a writer and a psychoanalyst, Gornick lets us get to know each member of the family as intimately as we might know our own. Probably better than our own, because even Myra, the grandmother and matriarch of the family, a psychoanalyst who is writing a detailed account of her personal passions, is not aware of the explosion that is about to happen in their lives when she hires a nanny from Peru to help take care of her grandson when her son and daughter-in-law move nearby. I guess that's what my Uncle Kenny meant when he said, "If only we could raise the neighbors' children." The clash of cultures--Eva, the nanny, from a young, Jewish woman from Peru, and Rachida, Myra's daughter-in-law from Morocco and the culture within this New York intelligentsia family, including the oddball, phobic, and film-obsessed Adam, Myra's son. If you love Alice Munro, Jonathan Franzen, Ian McEwan, Tolstoy, Stegner, and Elizabeth Strout, you will get your full measure from Tinderbox.
August 31, 2014
I really, really wanted to like this book. Once you get through the beginning it's probably great, but I just can't. The author's style for introductions just doesn't jibe with me; there are too many things going on, too many people being introduced, and I feel like I'm in the middle of learning about some random person's family tree instead of enjoying a story. As tends to happen when people begin going on about random relations, I get confused as to how people are actually related, and of course, this happened here. I'm not interested in being confused as to how someone is related; I want a good story. I just couldn't drag myself to read beyond the first fifteen pages or so. I wish I could just throw myself into the story at page 100 and not be completely confused; just let me know when these random familial relations end!
Written differently, this probably could have been a very interesting book.
Written differently, this probably could have been a very interesting book.
July 2, 2013
Tinderbox is a book club lover's dream come true. it has everything---mother/daughter issues; the incursion of the inexplicable (and often evil) event; loss; many opportunities to discuss the difference between appearance and reality (if there is one); the impact of the insoluble past on the present; a clash of cultures, angles of vision, history (real and imagined); guilt (real and imagined) and the impact of social position.
Order several large, large pizzas and some other stuff. Your book club may be camping out in your living room for the weekend.
Mickey Pearlman, Ph.D., author of What to Read
Order several large, large pizzas and some other stuff. Your book club may be camping out in your living room for the weekend.
Mickey Pearlman, Ph.D., author of What to Read
April 20, 2015
2nd half was definitely better than the first half. Sometimes, the book felt clunky or forced with the tidbits of history trivia worked in to the story line, particularly in the beginning. There's so much time spent on this Eva character and in the end I questioned whether it was even worth it. The dysfunction of the family is far more interesting (and relevant) to the story resolution, in my opinion. Overall, I'm not mad that I read this book, but it's probably a book I'll forget about pretty quickly... not too memorable.
March 20, 2014
Just awful. Too many characters introduced right away and with complicated descriptions often forcing me to re-read the page to understand what the hell I just read. The way this was written was definitely from a doctor/professionals point of view. The text was very complex and hard to digest. I like to read to relax and escape into a story but I just couldn't bring myself to do either with this book. Couldn't get past the first 100 pages.
September 30, 2013
Loved this book. Hooked me from the start. Found the story very suspenseful and very real. This stuff happens. I totally connected with the characters and really felt the tension mount as the plot progressed. Satisfying ending. All around excellent read.
October 23, 2013
A family drama mostly centered around the mother, Myra, a therapist. Her son and her daughter have their own issues, as well as Myra's dilemma with her newly arrived housekeeper. Smartly written with insight into family relationships.
February 2, 2014
Good psychoanalytical look at why people do what they do and a reminder that we all have skeletons on our closet.
April 12, 2014
gave up on page 50, annoying
January 11, 2022
this story was very wild??? i was invested in the main plot so that was good. there were so many characters for absolutely no reason. like someone would get introduced for a page and then i was just confused as to who all these random people were that had no importance to the story. there were a lot of plot twists and it was very very dark which i sort of liked and sort of didn’t. i wish there was more of a conclusion with eva, the rest of them got sorted out but eva is just going to burn someone else’s house down i guess. is adam gonna get to live out his gay dreams? who knows. that part was rly weird though i was not expecting to have gay porn magazines described to me! didn’t love it. i wish there had been less about larry and max etc bc literally who cares about them. idk it was just weird and i ended up skimming all the parts that weren’t the main plot bc it was BORING. also the ending with caro seemed kinda random and sudden. there was also too much random stuff coming out of adam’s mouth but i think he was meant to be annoying. it took me like half the book to get interested in the plot because everything before that is a bunch of back story that actually ends up not being very important! not my fave book lol
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2019
Tinderbox, Lisa Gornick
Many rave reviews of this book, but from the beginning I just didn't really like it. I found it predictable and pretentious. The reader can see everything coming as the story unfolds. No surprises. That may have been the intention, but the style made it less interesting for me. Entitled NY in many ways. It's a family story about a NY City woman, living in a brownstone, who's troubled son, wife and grandson come back to live with her. She also invites a young woman with a questionable history to live with them as housekeeper and nanny. Needless to say, several bad things happen, but as the book progresses you become more committed to the characters and the story. Not my favorite, but I seem to be in the minority.
Many rave reviews of this book, but from the beginning I just didn't really like it. I found it predictable and pretentious. The reader can see everything coming as the story unfolds. No surprises. That may have been the intention, but the style made it less interesting for me. Entitled NY in many ways. It's a family story about a NY City woman, living in a brownstone, who's troubled son, wife and grandson come back to live with her. She also invites a young woman with a questionable history to live with them as housekeeper and nanny. Needless to say, several bad things happen, but as the book progresses you become more committed to the characters and the story. Not my favorite, but I seem to be in the minority.
May 29, 2019
I was absolutely taken by this story! Not only do I love a good dysfunctional family plot, but the author's clinical psychology background definitely shines in this novel. All of the characters are given a strong voice, and the struggles are both heartbreaking and way too real. Gornick does a good job flowing between all of the various characters, and slowly revealing how everyone's traumas affect each other.
June 30, 2017
Book was readable enough and discussible enough, but to use my Mom's rule, a book isn't great if none of the characters are likable!!
There were definite fascinating moments, particularly Eva's , "therapy", but her character wasn't fleshed out enough so that was a disappointment.
Always fun to read a book where a book club member has some inside info on the author!!
There were definite fascinating moments, particularly Eva's , "therapy", but her character wasn't fleshed out enough so that was a disappointment.
Always fun to read a book where a book club member has some inside info on the author!!
July 4, 2017
The book was beautifully written, and extremely insightful into people, relationships, and life itself. There were definitely some unpleasant characters, and some strange rabbit holes. Still I'm glad I read it.
October 25, 2017
I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one about 1/4 in, but I kept at it & was pleasantly surprised. The characters develop a bit slowly, but there’s definitely a point where I became more invested, especially once I sensed the ominous undertones.
January 31, 2021
I was waiting for more on the maid! And yet, a strangely satisfying read.
June 23, 2014
Read the full review at my blog, Read Her Like an Open Book. http://wp.me/p3EtWm-fk
Here is an excerpt.
Some books, like people, make a poor first impression. The cover art of Tinderbox lacks the gravitas of the book’s “mysterious stranger meets fragile family” premise. The first section of the book doesn’t help matters; something about the exposition seems forced and heavy-handed. The characters, upper income Upper West Siders, seem cliched and not especially likable. The descriptions include too many labels and product names. It’s all just a little off-putting. But one doesn’t put a book down after only 25 pages. Have faith in the author and the story she has to tell; all will become clear.
Just as people who make a poor first impression can go on to become a close friend or even a spouse, so does Tinderbox slowly and steadily win over the reader. By page 50, most of your reservations will have been left behind, as the rising action pulls you in. By page 100, it has become a taut and absorbing story of a family laboring under manifold burdens and secrets. By page 200, it has utterly won you over with the quality of the writing, the probing insights into characters and conflicts, and — yes — the likability of the characters, of whom you have grown quite fond.
Lisa Gornick is a psychotherapist by training, and her background informs Tinderbox. The protagonist, Myra, is a middle-aged therapist working out of a ground floor office in her four-story home on West 95th Street. Her daughter Caro is the workaholic director of a preschool in East Harlem for underprivileged kids, with no love life to speak of. Myra has invited her son Adam, along with his wife, Rachida, and their young son, Omar, to live with her for the year while Rachida completes a respecialization fellowship to switch from dermatology to primary care. Adam is a feckless, phobic, and under-employed screenwriter of second-rate Westerns, obsessed with movies in the manner of an overgrown Film Studies major. Rachida is a driven Moroccan Jew who has married into a secular Jewish family. Myra’s ex-husband, Larry, is a cardiologist who has remarried and now lives in Tucson; their relationship is polite but distant.
Into this already fragile domestic drama comes Eva, a young girl from Peru who has been recommended to Myra by her cousin Ursula in Lima. She has had a difficult life, having lost her mother in a house fire when she was just a child. Interestingly, she is convinced that she is descended from a small group of Sephardic Jews living in the Amazon city of Iquitos, where Moroccan Jews had once settled to work in the rubber export trade. Myra, despite initial reservations, agrees to allow Eva to become the newly-expanded Mendelsohn family’s nanny. What follows is a textbook example of the expression “No good deed goes unpunished.” The law of unintended consequences plays itself out in such compelling fashion that readers will find themselves racing to the last page....
Here is an excerpt.
Some books, like people, make a poor first impression. The cover art of Tinderbox lacks the gravitas of the book’s “mysterious stranger meets fragile family” premise. The first section of the book doesn’t help matters; something about the exposition seems forced and heavy-handed. The characters, upper income Upper West Siders, seem cliched and not especially likable. The descriptions include too many labels and product names. It’s all just a little off-putting. But one doesn’t put a book down after only 25 pages. Have faith in the author and the story she has to tell; all will become clear.
Just as people who make a poor first impression can go on to become a close friend or even a spouse, so does Tinderbox slowly and steadily win over the reader. By page 50, most of your reservations will have been left behind, as the rising action pulls you in. By page 100, it has become a taut and absorbing story of a family laboring under manifold burdens and secrets. By page 200, it has utterly won you over with the quality of the writing, the probing insights into characters and conflicts, and — yes — the likability of the characters, of whom you have grown quite fond.
Lisa Gornick is a psychotherapist by training, and her background informs Tinderbox. The protagonist, Myra, is a middle-aged therapist working out of a ground floor office in her four-story home on West 95th Street. Her daughter Caro is the workaholic director of a preschool in East Harlem for underprivileged kids, with no love life to speak of. Myra has invited her son Adam, along with his wife, Rachida, and their young son, Omar, to live with her for the year while Rachida completes a respecialization fellowship to switch from dermatology to primary care. Adam is a feckless, phobic, and under-employed screenwriter of second-rate Westerns, obsessed with movies in the manner of an overgrown Film Studies major. Rachida is a driven Moroccan Jew who has married into a secular Jewish family. Myra’s ex-husband, Larry, is a cardiologist who has remarried and now lives in Tucson; their relationship is polite but distant.
Into this already fragile domestic drama comes Eva, a young girl from Peru who has been recommended to Myra by her cousin Ursula in Lima. She has had a difficult life, having lost her mother in a house fire when she was just a child. Interestingly, she is convinced that she is descended from a small group of Sephardic Jews living in the Amazon city of Iquitos, where Moroccan Jews had once settled to work in the rubber export trade. Myra, despite initial reservations, agrees to allow Eva to become the newly-expanded Mendelsohn family’s nanny. What follows is a textbook example of the expression “No good deed goes unpunished.” The law of unintended consequences plays itself out in such compelling fashion that readers will find themselves racing to the last page....
April 26, 2014
This is a complex and satisfying book on many levels. First, it is a well-integrated documentation of the Jewish populations who have lived in Morocco and North Peru. Second, it is the story of an extended family living in a Manhattan brownstone in which many diverse characters are interestingly portrayed.
Myra, the central character, is a psychoanalyst caught in a difficult situation. She oversteps boundaries with Eva, a disturbed Peruvian immigrant, in a way that every therapist, myself included, can empathize with.
In spite of, or maybe because of the the tragic chain of events that intervene, these characters' capacity for self-reflection and growth enable enduring positive changes in their own lives. Myra is the driving and loving force on her family; however, while helping others we become increasingly aware of the flaws in her own personality. Her perfectionism first seems admirable, but it enfolds as a defense against despair, a protection that she works hard to overcome with the help of a very interesting and credible relationship,with her own therapist.
I loved how different Myra's children are, yet they love and help each other. Her son has many phobias, which the author handles in a sympathetic but amusing manner.
In short, a well-written and life-affirming book. I hope that her next one arrives soon
Myra, the central character, is a psychoanalyst caught in a difficult situation. She oversteps boundaries with Eva, a disturbed Peruvian immigrant, in a way that every therapist, myself included, can empathize with.
In spite of, or maybe because of the the tragic chain of events that intervene, these characters' capacity for self-reflection and growth enable enduring positive changes in their own lives. Myra is the driving and loving force on her family; however, while helping others we become increasingly aware of the flaws in her own personality. Her perfectionism first seems admirable, but it enfolds as a defense against despair, a protection that she works hard to overcome with the help of a very interesting and credible relationship,with her own therapist.
I loved how different Myra's children are, yet they love and help each other. Her son has many phobias, which the author handles in a sympathetic but amusing manner.
In short, a well-written and life-affirming book. I hope that her next one arrives soon
October 27, 2014
I want to thank Goodreads First Reads and author Lisa Gornick for my copy of Tinderbox that I won through the drawing. I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to read this wonderful book. This book revolves around one family and the various events in their lives that make them who they are. It is a psychological study of the dynamics of family and what makes us each an individual.....our environment, experiences and the choices we make sending us down a new paths. The events in this book lead to a devastating event, after which they pick up the pieces and start anew down new paths. The book did start slow, as is the case of character based stories, but once you got to intimately understand and know the characters, it was hard to put the book down. The reader is made to feel their pain, happiness and guilt. The author did a fantastic job in making these characters real people. The only minor negatives that bothered me were some of the transitions between present time to a past event were not smooth, and some sentences seemed run on and confusing. But as a whole, the book was wonderful and flawless and I highly recommend it to serious readers.
February 4, 2017
I found this an intriguing book. I am a drama/family stories lover of books. Tinderbox follows a family that is in crisis but everyone isn't aware what is happening with the other family members,and on the surface, everything seems very normal. Very much like real families, when you think about it. There is a young interracial married couple, Rachida and Adam, and their young son, Omar. Rachida and Adam both have explosive secrets. There is Caro, Adam's sister, single and who secretly hates herself and binge eats. There is Myra, the mother of Caro and Adam, a psychotherapist by trade and trying to juggle all the balls, who has a contentious but complicated relationship with her ex. There is Eva, the housekeeper/nanny from Brazil with multiple secrets and barely holding it together. All of these actors come under the same roof and things begin to spiral downward. There is a lot of insight to the Moroccan and Brazilian cultures that I found interesting. If you like dynamics in the family, you will love this book. I fell in love a little bit with all the characters, except for Adam, but he even redeemed himself in my eyes.
October 25, 2013
Lisa Gornick knows that the greatest dramas are the internal ones. Tinderbox is a super-intelligent page-turner about a housekeeper/nanny hired by a grandmother whose son and daughter-in-law and their young boy is coming to live with her in her Manhattan apartment for a year. There are signs that make the family--and us, especially us--uneasy about Eva, the nanny, from the start. But the suspense isn't just about whether Eva is stable or not--it's about how the rest of the family, each with his or her own issues and blind spots, will handle the clues. The family in Tinderbox is utterly real and sympathetic--a dad with a porn habit, a sister with an eating disorder, an ex-husband who keeps courting the wife he cheated on decades ago. Gornick, a psychoanalyst, knows how deeply we are shaped by our hangups and our pasts, and yet how we always can reach for free will. A terrific read.
March 17, 2016
I found this book because I read a magazine article I liked by this author. I almost put this book away though, but I am glad a stuck with it because the second half was much more compelling. The author is a physicist, so the beginning part introducing the characters felt inauthentic and prescriptive. It is like a case study of a family that all has sex issues and so forth. But the plot gets better when this subsides. The story follows a family who has been pushed apart comes back together under one roof. A Peruvian housekeeper comes into their lives and brings some dark secrets. The matriarch of the family, Myra, is a counselor and learns of this troubled past. She is conflicted about how to act and what unravels is an event that changes the course of the broken family's life forever. I wouldn't call it a must read, but I liked the end.
April 21, 2014
The pink dust-jacket was misleading; it led me to expect something sweet and heart-warming, But the old adage about book covers turned out to be true. "Tinderbox" is a strong, fascinating, and multi-faceted story about New York, culture, religion, movies, music, and sexuality. The characters assumed a vivid life for me; the plot strands weave into a strong dynamic arc, and the writing is at a very high level--elegantly done. I returned to it every night at bedtime with the greatest enthusiasm and felt slightly bereft when I finished. Gornick has a knack for creating strong characters and developing them in surprising ways. When they get mixed up with one another, the tinderbox ignites. This book has continued to haunt and fascinate me for months. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews