Book 2.3: When We Were Bad

Author: Charlotte Mendelson
Dates read: January 13, 2011 - January 23, 2011 (11 days)
Pages: 321 pages
Genre: Fiction

I picked this novel as my next read because I’ve had it for quite a while without making it around to it, and I wanted another humorous read before going back to the much larger stack of somber reads on my bookshelf.

This novel follows a Jewish family in England in the days leading up to the release of a new book about family values written by the matriarch, Claudia, a famous rabbi. She’s kept from the rest of her family how dire their financial situation is, but has impressed upon them the importance of her book being a success, leaving them all aware at least to be on their very best behavior in order to uphold Claudia’s public image as a woman of faith that has it all. Unfortunately, in the weeks before her book release, nearly her entire family decides to embrace their own desires for the first time rather than continue to live their lives for Claudia alone. Her eldest son, Leo, jilts his bride at the altar in favor of running off with another rabbi’s wife, landing him back in the familial home when his mistress declares they can’t wreck other families just to follow their own libidos. Claudia’s eldest daughter, Frances, reaches the end of her rope pretending to be happy as a wife and stepmother in a marriage Claudia practically arranged for her, finding instead that she’s questioning if she’s even interested in men in the first place. Claudia’s husband, Norman, has been hiding the fact that he also has a book about to be published, because it is the first time that his own writing is likely to outshadow Claudia’s and he hasn’t had the heart to tell her. With everything falling apart on the eve of the book publication and an important Passover dinner, the members of the Rubin family continue to turn further and further inward, unknowingly making everyone else’s situation worse.

This novel, though filled with a great deal of dry humor, is actually more of a picture of melancholy and lost opportunity than anything else. A lot of the book deals with the Jewish faith and how it has affected the characters’ perceptions of duty and happiness, but I think by the end, the despair and feelings of responsibility captured are so universal that it could have been about nearly any religion, or even none at all, because the family dynamics supersede the religious elements. Watching an entire family independently realize that they’ve never really said they love one another, and even worse that it might be too late to undo decades of reticence about the only things that really matter, is absolutely heartbreaking. I didn’t realize what I was in for when I started since the book jacket painted the novel simply as wry and witty, but the unexpected, naked vulnerability at the core of each protagonist was both pleasantly surprising and very effectual. This novel lured me in in the best way: I was laughing at the start but by the end I cared so much for the characters that I was brought to tears.