In the Middle of All This

by Fred G. Leebron

Martin Kreutzel and his ill sister, Elizabeth, are as close as grown siblings can be-they have an essential connection. However, she lives with her husband outside of London and he lives with his wife and two children in a small Pennsylvania college town where he and his wife are both professors. Neither one of them likes the atmosphere there but they both have tenure track positions and can raise their two children in a safe neighborhood, in a house they can own. As Elizabeth's cancer worsens, Martin's love for her cripples his abilities at work and at home. When Elizabeth's husband, Richard, disappears for a few days, and one of Martin's students hangs herself, Martin finds himself torn between serving his sister and being a good husband, father, and professor. After Martin makes a trip to London to be with his sister, the situation gets stranger, alarming even, when Richard returns and whisks his wife off for the day, disappearing again, except this time he takes Elizabeth with him.
Leebron's compelling third novel brings us into the world of domestic unease as two couples and their joined families wrestle with empathy's limitations in the uncompromising teeth of mortality.

251 pages, Hardcover

First published August 21, 2002

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

My journey to this book was interesting! A Wisconsin librarian posted a reference question where a patron had a description of a book and wanted to know what the book was. She eventually discovered that it was this book. I borrowed it through WISCAT. The relationship between Martin (protagonist) and Elizabeth (his sister who is fighting cancer) is very close. However, they live on two different continents. Martin has to confront the fact that Elizabeth is slipping away. Meanwhile, he is living his ordinary life fraught with stresses. The concluding paragraph holds a lot: "She was gone, oh god she was gone. These had been years that death was everywhere, that he woke every morning and could not escape it, that he kept feeling he was missing everybody, that he had to keep living, that death descended, that it hadn't yet arrived. These were years that death was everywhere. He had never wanted them to end." I liked the plot device of "brokenness". The garage door broken in America, the glass broken in the window in London.