Hilda and Pearl: A Novel, by Alice Mattison

This was an interesting, quick read, so this will be a quick review. Hilda and Pearl hooked me from about the third chapter, where it turned into a grown-up novel of forgiveness, love, loss, and family.

The story begins with Frances watching her parents, aunt, uncle, and cousin interact at their beach house one summer during the McCarthy era. While this was vaguely interesting, thing really get interesting when, after this point, the book switches gears and works from the point where her aunt, Pearl, meets her uncle, Mike, and works forward, explaining all that Frances sees and hears. There is a lot more going on than Frances knows about, even with her intuitive observance, and as an adult, it really reminded me that the memories that we all have of childhood are all colored with the innocence we had then, rather than with the knowledge of what was going on underneath. It is hard to imagine that a family could go through so much, and yet still be together, and even more so that there are millions of families out there, with similar histories, that we unknowingly see every day.

The one part of the novel that I didn't enjoy or really see the point of was the interaction between Frances and her friend. It was either extraneous or not developed enough, and Marrison should have either worked it more or left it out; I would have voted for more, so there would have been a clearer parallel with the rest of the story. Thankfully, it was only a small part of the novel. Also, one of the two plot twists was clearly predictable from a mile away, which took some of the fun out of the first half of the book.

Mattison has written several other books, and I think I will probably check them out at the library as well.

Rating: three out of five stars - enjoyable, but somewhat predictable; one particular moment between Nathan and Hilda as they reconstruct their marriage almost makes the novel worthwhile on its own