Review by New York Times Review
There's a touching paradox in the first chapter of Jami Attenberg's caustic, entertaining and bighearted new novel, "The Middlesteins." Edie, 5 years old and 62 pounds, is already too solid, in her mother's estimation, too big for her age. But how can her mother not feed her, when she and her husband feel that food is "made of love, and love . . . made of food"? How can these parents deny Edie life-giving nourishment when Edie's father, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, nearly starved on his journey to Chicago and has never been able to get enough to eat since? Even though it's clear that young Edie suffers under her own weight - she huffs and puffs up the stairs "like someone's gassy old uncle after a meal" - her mother can't refuse her the liverwurst and rye bread she loves. This is a Jewish mother after all, and those of us who've had one know that the message, when it comes to food, is always have a little more. It's an attitude that comes not just from love, but also from fear; a history fraught with disaster and hunger gives rise to the feeling that one must always be prepared. Therefore, bubbeleh, have another matzo ball. Food keeps us alive, yes. But it can also kill us. That subject has become a cultural obsession, inciting cautionary documentaries (HBO's "Weight of the Nation" series), reality TV shows ("The Biggest Loser" and "Dance Your Ass Off"), large-scale civic regulations (New York's banning of trans fats and oversize sugary drinks), and, at the White House, an enormous kitchen garden carved from the first lawn, along with a book (Michelle Obama's "American Grown") and a presidential call for action to improve America's eating habits. This novel takes the issue personally: Edie Middlestein, the novel's larger-than-life protagonist, is killing herself by overeating, and her family can't bear to watch. At 60 years old or so, Edie weighs in at more than 300 pounds and suffers from diabetes so severe she requires stents in both legs. Soon, her doctor tells her, she may need a bypass. Add to this the fact that Edie's professional life has fallen apart, thanks to her weight: the suburban Chicago law firm where she worked for three decades has quietly retired her, with a pension meant to hush her up about their (clearly discriminatory) reasons for doing so. Now her most reliable comfort lies in food, in the instantly fulfilled promise of a tangy barbecue sandwich, or a bag of crisp potato chips with cool onion dip, or a package of devil's-food cookies. She begins frequenting a Chinese restaurant called the Golden Unicorn, whose offerings include "steaming, plush pork buns, and bright green broccoli in thick lobster sauce, sticky brown noodles paired with sweet shrimp and glazed chicken, briny, chewy clams swimming in a subtle blackbean gravy." She might go on eating herself to death, unimpeded by her family, if not for a final terrible insult: Richard, her husband of more than 30 years, files for divorce, abandoning her to self-destruction. In the wake of this outrage, her children rally to her support - at first grudgingly, then with an increasing sense of urgency and dread, as the intractability of her addiction becomes clear. Though Edie is undoubtedly at the center of this maelstrom, she is not Attenberg's only, or even primary, subject; as the novel's title suggests, the real subject here is a suburban Jewish family, and how it reacts to the disaster unfolding in its midst. The narration takes place in the round: chapters alternate between Edie's perspective and eight other points of view, mainly those of family members, whose personal histories and narratives unfold alongside Edie's own. We learn about the new relationship her daughter, Robin, is having with Daniel, a neighbor who wins her love by refusing to tolerate her bitterness and self-protective toughness. We learn about the lavish b'nai mitzvah Edie's svelte daughter-in-law, Rachelle, is planning for her twins, amid a growing obsession with Edie's amplitude. We learn about Richard's forays into the world of mature dating, which include dinners with miserable widows, an expensive encounter with a "hooker, or half a hooker, maybe," and a deeper connection with a kind, witty, red-haired Englishwoman who teaches him how to court his estranged children's affections. We hear about the insecurities of Benny, Edie's son (he's losing his oncelush hair, and thus facing his mortality), and about his tender and deep-seated love for his mother, which manifests in a selfless nighttime vigil at her kitchen table, meant to prevent Edie from eating on the night before her surgery. We even learn, in what is perhaps the novel's most surprising, lyrical and moving chapter, what it's like to be Kenneth Song, the owner of the Chinese restaurant that serves those luscious pork buns and noodle dishes - a man who, flattened by the loss of his own wife, experiences a renaissance of spirit as he falls in love with Edie. BETWEEN these stories, as we return to Edie's point of view and trace the increase in her weight over the years, her own narrative gains richness and complexity. The burning question, which Attenberg explores with patience and sensitivity, is why Edie has embarked on her self-destructive path. The answers themselves aren't surprising: Edie married too early, felt ambivalent about parenthood, became disillusioned with her career. What's remarkable is the unfailing emotional accuracy and specificity with which Attenberg renders Edie's despair. "She had lost her way," Attenberg writes. "Her father had spent much of his spare time quietly helping immigrants set up new lives for themselves in the suburbs of Chicago. She worked for a law firm that worked almost exclusively for corporations developing shopping plazas all along Dundee Road, from I-94 to Route 53 and beyond, and when they were done with that road, they would probably find another one. Thirty years old, and she had failed. Look at the rubble, the empty fastfood wrappers, the mashed-up plastic toy parts. . . . It had been so long since she'd dared look in a mirror. Edie, Edie, Edie." That lament for the lost self is familiar to us all; who hasn't bewailed the difference between what might have been and what is? And that's Edie at 30, a full three decades before she's attained the level of grief that leads her to a place where, even on the night before surgery, she can't stop herself from going to the kitchen for a snack. It's a tough transformation to watch, though Edie herself is a source of lightness throughout; even at her lowest point, she's capable of generosity and grace. At the Chinese restaurant, when she notices the owner and his daughter poring miserably over legal files, she comes to their side and offers to help. "She had been a lawyer once, a long time ago, but not so long that she had forgotten what she knew. 'I was very good at what I did,' said Edie Middlestein. She said it like it was a promise." With so many engaging stories in play, and so many rich layers of emotional complication competing for space on the page, this largely brilliant novel can sometimes feel cluttered. Snaking through its chapters is a restless omniscient voice that nudges us from one character's perspective to another, asks us to examine our opinion of a character's actions, or suddenly shows us the current point-of-view character from a more distant perspective, jarring us from the place we've been occupying behind that character's eyes. Strikingly, the voice makes periodic departures from the present-day narration, shooting forward to offer an (often tantalizing, sometimes heartbreaking) glimpse of the characters' future lives. The effect is a bit like being at a party with a friend who, constantly checking her smartphone, is convinced there's a more exciting party elsewhere. More frustrating is the fact that certain of those glimpses really are more interesting than the present-day narration, which at times sacrifices depth and breadth to bring our attention back to Edie's relationship with food. The message of "The Middlesteins" is, after all, larger than that subject. Life is fraught with disappointment, Attenberg tells us, and in our efforts to ease our pain we often make decisions that have the opposite effect. We leave marriages that have become difficult, and later experience loneliness and terrible searing regret. We wall ourselves off from negative emotion, and end up blocking out love. We fear the loss of control, and end up bound too tightly by self-restraint. We allow ourselves to fall prey to the bad habits that provide momentary comfort, and end up paying with our lives. If the message sounds dark, it is; if it sounds hopeless, it's not meant to be. In the near term, the tragedies that befall this suburban Jewish family break it apart, but the longer-term effects are different: parents and children find mutual understanding, siblings comfort each other, warring parties find common ground in grief, and those who approach the world with an open heart receive love in return - even if it's the last thing they do. This novel takes obesity personally: Attenherg's larger-than-life heroine is killing herself by overeating. Julie Orringer is the author of a novel, "The Invisible Bridge," and a story collection, "How to Breathe Underwater."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 30, 2012]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The Middlesteins, a Jewish family of strong temperaments and large dysfunctions, living in the middle of the country in Chicago and its suburbs, revolve around Edie, a woman of gargantuan appetites. Attenberg (The Melting Season, 2010) marshals her gift for mordant yet compassionate comedy to chart Edie's rise and fall in sync with her ever-ballooning weight. Smart, generous, and voracious in every way, Edie is a lawyer who loves food and work more than her pharmacist husband. Her daughter, Robin, a private-school history teacher, is anxious and reclusive. Edie's even-keeled, pot-smoking son, Benny, is married to Edie's opposite, petite and disciplined Rachelle, an ambitious stay-at-home mother of twins. After Edie loses her job and rolls past the 300-pound mark, she becomes a medical crisis waiting to happen. Finally galvanized into action, her in-denial family is both helpful and destructive, each effort and failure revealing yet another dimension of inherited suffering. A flawless omnicient narrator, Attenberg even illuminates the life of the man who owns foodaholic Edie's favorite Chinese restaurant while executing perfect flashbacks and flash-forwards and subtly salting this irresistible family portrait with piquant social commentary. Kinetic with hilarity and anguish, romance and fury, Attenberg's rapidly consumed yet nourishing novel anatomizes our insatiable hunger for love, meaning, and hope.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A panoply of neurotic characters fills Attenberg's multigenerational novel about a Midwestern Jewish family. Shifting points of view tell the story of the breakup and aftermath of Edie and Richard Middlestein's nearly 40-year marriage as Edie slowly eats herself to death. Richard and his brilliant but demanding and ever larger wife raised two children. Robin is intense and hostile; Benny lives an idyll with his wife, Rachelle, in the Chicago suburbs, sharing a joint after putting their twins to bed at night. Much of Rachelle's time is spent assuring that the twins' b'nai mitzvah extravaganza goes off without a hitch. When complications surrounding Edie's diabetes precipitate Richard's filing for divorce, the already tightly wound Rachelle becomes obsessed with the family's physical and moral health. Soon the affable Benny's hair is falling out in clumps. Attenberg (Instant Love) makes her characters' thoughts-Richard and Benny in particular-seem utterly real, and her wry, observational humor often hits sideways rather than head-on. Edie's overeating, described with great sensuality, will resonate, with only the obstreperousness of all three generations of Middlestein women (granddaughter Emily included) marring this wonderfully messy and layered family portrait. Agent: Douglas Stewart, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Oct. 23) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Edie Middlestein is digging her grave with her teeth, as the saying goes. Previously a successful Chicago attorney, Edie has sought comfort in food all her life; she craves fattening treats the way an alcoholic craves booze. Now that she is over 60 and over 300 pounds, her partners have pretty much forced early retirement on her. Edie is also facing a second surgery on her legs. Her husband, Richard, has had enough. He leaves his wife after nearly 40 years of marriage, to the shock of their easygoing son, Benny, and the anger of their difficult daughter, Robin. Despite this sad scenario, Attenberg (The Kept Man) finds ample comic moments in this wry tale about an unraveling marriage. She has a great ear for dialog, and the novel is perfectly paced. Her characters are all believable, if not always sympathetic, though Edie's romance with a Chinese restaurant owner seems improbable. VERDICT Attenberg seamlessly weaves comedy and tragedy in this warm and engaging family saga of love and loss.-Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
From Attenberg (The Melting Season, 2010, etc.), the deeply satisfying story of a Chicago family coming apart at the seams and weaving together at the same time. Former lawyer Edie Middlestein has always been a large presence, brilliant as a lawyer, loving as a mother, shrewish as a wife. Since early childhood, food has been her private if not secret passion. The novel is organized according to Edie's fluctuations in weight, and the descriptions of her sensual joy in the gluttony that may be killing her are often mouthwatering. Sixty-ish Edie is obese and ravaged by diabetes. When her pharmacist husband, Richard, leaves her shortly before she's scheduled for an operation, Edie's children are outraged. Thirty-one-year-old teacher Robin is a fearful near alcoholic who has avoided intimacy since a disastrous experience in high school. Ironically, her new self-proclaimed hatred of her father opens her to the possibility of a relationship with her geeky neighbor Daniel, a gentle soul with a hidden but strong spine, not unlike Robin's older brother Benny. Benny is happily married to Rachelle, a woman of fierce protectiveness who initially denies Richard all access to his grandchildren to punish him for his desertion. Is Richard a heartless, selfish man, or is he correct that Edie left him years before he left her? A little of both. All these characters feel more than one emotion at a time, and all are more than they first seem. Edie is an overbearing matriarch in her family, but a lovable saint to the owner of her favorite Chinese restaurant. Richard is a schlemiel, except that he is capable of real love. While the novel focuses intensely on each member of the family, it also offers a panoramic, more broadly humorous, verging-on-caricature view of the Midwestern Jewish suburbia in which the Middlesteins are immersed, from the shopping centers to the synagogues. But as the Middlesteins and their friends move back and forth in time, their lives take on increasing depth individually and together. A sharp-tongued, sweet-natured masterpiece of Jewish family life.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
