Family Resemblances

by Lowry Pei

Fifteen-year-old Karen spends the summer with her unusual Aunt Augusta and learns many things about love, life, and the complexities of growing up.

Genres: Fiction

264 pages, Hardcover

First published March 12, 1986

Reviews

[Michael Joosten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I made a deliberate effort to hunt down this book after having Lowry Pei as a writing professor--I was curious to see what he'd written. I was not disappointed. Although as an everyday-set, everyday-character-driven novel it's a bit outside my normal genre preferences, Pei was more than able to hold my attention and the portrait he painted of midwestern Missouri, small-town life in the 1980s was so lovingly redolent of my own childhood only a decade later in very similar circumstances. Family Resemblances is a well-written paeon to teenaged summers in the Great Plains and well worth reading.

[Trevor Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a close encounter with the fourth kind (a pubescent and hormonal 17 year-old young man) a mother and father decide to send their only child 15 year-old Karen Moss off to her aunt Augusta's for an indeterminate amount of time over the summer vacation. The Moss's feel that a trip away from the fast city of Chicago and out into country side of New Franklin, Missouri will cool her off and allow them time to work on their own problems. Confused by her boyfriend's advances she is sent into even more of a tizzy by being shipped off to a house she hasn't seen since she was a small child. The search for liberty when in truth being free is not a plausible fate. You may become more free than before but there will always be restrictions in the way of your pursuit for true independence.

"All the New Franklin women I had seen finally registered, and I could see not only how I looked next to them but how Augusta did: her hair was too long and too straight, and no woman of her age, even if she had that gorgeous hair, would ever wear it down, or be seen in town in blue jeans and manning shirts, or wear socks instead of nylons. And that was the least of it; what was really wrong was the look in her eye, lonely and defiant. Fierce - but with no one to back her up, and she knew it."

New Franklin is a small town with the typical hard working, don't have to lock your doors, beer, baseball and bratwurst type of values. When Karen meets her 35 year-old aunt Augusta she notices that she is a preserver of memories, the Moss family curator. So much so she put her own life on hold to come back home and live in and renovate her grandparents home after they passed on. Karen is stunned at how Augusta immediately treats her like an adult, something she could get used to after being under the watchful eye of her mother all these years. Karen quickly learns that Augusta is a woman constantly on the go, always having to do something even if it made little sense from a practical standpoint. Karen also learns that although she has escaped the overbearing nature of her mother, Augusta seems to draw the same attention from her countryside neighbours. Everyone Karen came across had secrets except her, it seems like she has lead a superficial life up until her time in New Franklin. An interesting take on how a similar problem can strike a chord with two people at vastly different stages in their lives. Doubt and the improvisation of relationships that Augusta and Karen valued was in stark contrast to the predictable and surety of the majority of small town and traditional marriages. The decision to live with no expectations but endless possibilities or routine, consistency and unconditional love is a choice that demands attention.

Living in a home with a father that is engaging and childlike, a mother that is rigid and cold and a life that is ordinary and predictable; it is great for Karen to have some excitement and consistency even if that consistency involves hard work, isolation and an aunt that talks too much after a few glasses of wine. Augusta treats Karen like an adult by giving her driving lessons, recognizing how she would have liked to be treated at that age, dropping some wine in her glass at the dinner table, or uncomfortably talking about a burgeoning sexuality. At times Karen enjoys the release into thoughtful discussion, while other times she would like Augusta to respect whatever remains of her childhood innocence. While Karen expects love, romance, and fairy tales Augusta reminds her that facts, reality, and situations dictate life. Karen's fight is having them both correlate some way, some how.

"Sometimes I wondered if it was right for Augusta to tell me the things she did, as we sat in the kitchen in the evenings. There was something illicit about the secrecy of doing whatever we pleased. I couldn't help wondering as I took walks around New Franklin alone what the town thought of Augusta, a single woman living by herself in a house too big for one person. I was just her niece, my grandparents grandchild; they said hello and saw right through me to my ancestors. Maybe Augusta was thought of as a person who knew where she belonged. She was George Streeter's girl, Augusta. But she was something else, too: unmarried, thirty-five - in not too long she'd be an old maid or something worse; already, I was almost sure, they considered her an eccentric."

I am often reminded by my brother how much I resemble our own father. The way I brush crumbs off of my fingertips when I am eating toast or a big sandwich, the way I have my face set when I am strumming a little air guitar, the look I give when I am bothered by something or my impressive, albeit limited dance moves. But you see these are just imitations that may have been tailored as a young grasshopper looking at their master or simply inborn mannerisms, not necessarily behaviours. Sure there are some commonalities as well in personality; a possible short temper, physical; black hair and a widow's peak, behaviour; stubborn, hard headed, holder of grudges, and the way we clench our teeth when we're angry, and identification through our liberal viewpoints and love for billiards, baseball, and female lyricists. In Family Resemblances we find a girl that seemingly has little in common with the parents she has lived with for fifteen years (besides conservatism) and relates to an aunt she hasn't seen since early childhood. Karen and Augusta together shared their own eccentricities, their prideful behaviour, and their uncompromising longing for love. We soon find that there is more that runs in the family.

"Augusta and my mother seemed, in that light, more like sisters than I had ever thought before. And I was like them - of course I was - but like didn't me and the same. I was partly my father, too, someone they'd never be. Maybe never even understand. Quieter than either of them, less direct. Thinking, I could feel myself pulling away from all of them, all my loyalties strained by differences that might never be resolved. I would never be any of them, or any adding up of them. For a moment I felt permanently alone."

I enjoyed the simplicity of this story. The tone resembles the mid-western setting with its slow pace and gradual release of information but what differentiates itself is the various topics of conversation. Maybe I am a little desensitized to infidelity, coming of age virginal conquering, and inner strife, but given the publishing year of 1986 and the story being set in the 1950's it would be safe to presume that this book would be a little controversial. It may be hard to find but if you come across it I would recommend it for its simplicity and it's commentary on the transition from moving from the kiddy table to the adult table, and a persons willingness to maintain independence even if it contrasts societal conventions.

"Sometimes I would stand in the drugstore for an hour reading magazines that I was embarrassed to buy and take home, like Mademoiselle and Seventeen. They made me almost unbearably conscious of being a girl. Someone was supposed to fall in love with me, and somehow I had inherited this terribly subtle task of making them do it, letting them do it, telling them to stop... exactly what they might do if I didn't stop them was never clear, which gave it a sort of wonder and horror, and I had no idea how I could ever be the cause of something so important."

[Seth Sawyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often, totally random grabs from used bookstores don't amount to much but as this one had the Vintage Contemporaries spine design, I had high hopes. This is a well done little coming-of-age story that can work as long as the writing's good and it's good. Lots and lots of little moments of wisdom from the 15-year-old narrator that are usually on the money and interesting and unique enough so as to convince you this person might be real. All the 15-year-old stuff is there: family angst, boy angst, awkward angst. A lot of angst. When Karen, the narrator, and the boy causing all the angst finally drop their guard, there is a sort-of love scene that blew me away. When the narrator finally decides to drop the angst and the defensiveness, this one really does what it's been promising it will do for the first 200 pages. Readable, spare, easy to like.

[Hjwoodward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - the author was utterly convincing as a 15-yr-old girl: her mood swings, uncertainties, unmanageable feelings and her yearning for freedom tethered to her needing to be a child still. The protagonist - Karen - gradually realises how the twenty years' age difference between herself and her aunt doesn't mean the older has all the answers, and she has to make her own particular moral choices by herself. I loved the way her emotions and inner life were described throughout the book. A great read.

[Margaret Rosen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this affectionate coming-of-age novel.

[Molly McDermott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great coming of age story, good portrayal of realizing nuance.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is YA coming of age at its best. I'm pretty sure it's the best YA I've read in 2011, and at the same time the book is literary enough that I'd recommend it to folks who turn up their noses at YA.

Do you remember what it felt like the first times you were able to talk to an adult *as* an adult? Coming of age YA books tend to be all about sex --- and that's touched on here --- but the power of this book is broadening the scope of what it means to reach adulthood. The relationship between our young heroine and her aunt rang completely true for me.

The setting was an added bonus. Very vivid.

I'd recommend this book to every one of my Goodreads friends except (possibly) the guys. You can download the ebook free from the author's website at http://www.lowrypei.com/novels, along with six unpublished novels (one of which seems like it might be a sequel?!)

[Jaylen Reese]

Karen is a teenager who has been through it all. She had just recently broke up with her boyfriend and her parent's marriage is on the rocks. In spite all these events Karen goes to spend her summer with her aunt in a Midwestern town where she learns alot about life and love.

This book was not the best book I have read but it was good. Im not really into to book that take place in the 50's but this story can apply to any era. I like how the story shows that when there is a loss there is a gain where after her break up she meets another boy who really shows her what love is truly like. This book was truly a regular love story, that many would enjoy reading. The only thing that could've been better is timing because the book was very slow going through the story line. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes a simple love story.

[lee lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another great story, told by a great narrator. Karen, the 15-year-old, narrator/protagonist is at an awkward age, but storytelling doesn't get the best of her. She's emotionally unstable but overly reserved (read: is a teenage girl!), and Pei's deft balance of these two characteristics bring a new viewpoint to the traditional bildungsroman. When Karen is uncomfortable, so is the reader. When Karen is angry, so is the reader. It's not just that we feel for her, we feel along with her. If this were one of a series, I'd definitely be out getting the next one!

[Kristy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid coming-of-age novel about a 15 year old girl who leaves Chicago to spend the summer in small town Missouri with her aunt. I found myself weirdly cross-identifying with both the teenage girl and the 30-something aunt. The book occasionally drags, and sometimes the voices and thoughts of the women don't quite ring true, but overall Pei captures that heightened timelessness of the last summer before you start driving, get a job, and really begin to grow up.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I re-read every year.