Cost: A Novel, by Roxana Robinson

Cost describes the misshapen, painful family dynamics of the Lamberts: Julia, her mother and father, her two young adult sons (Stephen and Jack), and her ex-husband as they come to deal with Jack's heroin addiction.

For such compelling material, the novel dragged. Jack and his addiction aren't even brought into the story until around page one hundred eighty (!!). Most of the book up until that point is spent belaboring the mental (and sometimes, physical) state, internal dialogue, and familial perspective of each of the characters. While interesting, these insights could have been made much, much, much shorter and still been effective. As the book progresses, certain characters seem to fall by the wayside, such as Stephen, whose thoughts I would have been more interested in hearing than the continual keening of Julia, who in the end all but completely abandons Stephen in order to focus on Jack.

The characters did progress throughout the novel, particularly Julia's father, who realizes that he is at the threshold of losing his wife to Alzheimer's just at the moment when he has finally come to appreciate her. That is an underlying theme in this novel; the characters only appreciate what they no longer have, be it marriage, parents, health, or love.

Once Jack is fully integrated into the story, the pace quickens, and becomes more interesting until the last chapter or so, when for some reason it entirely shifts gears, seeming disjointed and awkward. (SPOILER ALERT: I also didn't understand why Julia still lost her house, even though Jack didn't appear in court because he was dead. Seems to me death should excuse one from court.)

Rating: three stars out of five - the main part of the story was very good, once it finally got going: get this one from a library