The Laments - Hardcover

Hagen, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 034083272X ISBN 13: 9780340832721

Publisher: Sceptre, 2004

Synopsis

When Howard and Julia Lament adopt Will, a baby secretly switched at birth in a bizarre hospital debacle, it marks the beginning of a journey that takes them from Northern Rhodesia in the 1950s to the Persian Gulf, England and suburban, Seventies America, as they search for their place in the world. Howard is an engineer and dreamer, obsessed by the conveyance of liquids through valves. Julia is a woman of fiery spirit and an artist, who is constantly called upon to reinvent her family's life and her own. Forced by his younger, anarchic twin brothers to question his place in the family, Will struggles to find a sense of his own identity through the characters he meets en route - from Ruth, his first love in Africa, who carries around a biscuit tin lid to admire her reflection to Dawn Snedecker, the lisping intellectual who breaks his heart in America - and fights to keep his family from breaking apart.

Through the Laments' restlessness, their responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen draws a picture of every family that is funny, tragic, hopeful and true.

About this title

Review:

A novel which is, like George Hagen’s The Laments, about a continent-hopping family might seem like yesterday’s news when an international upbringing now seems almost de rigueur amongst writers. Yet this is no self-aggrandising romp round the world. Howard Lament’s grand plans for a better life and career lead his family from colonial Rhodesia to a bigoted, hypocritical 1970s New Jersey, via Bahrain’s blinkered ex-pat community and a violent small town in England.

The novel spans the eighteen years from Will’s birth and the secret of his adoption by the Laments to his graduation from high school. The first years in Africa provide a solid foundation to the story. It is when Will is a little older, and the family have left the obviously unjust colony that Hagen’s skill at peppering the story with culture shocks and mischievous details really enlivens the Laments’ travels and Will’s friendships and loves.

Luckily the reader is kept chuckling, because Hagen takes us unflinchingly into the depression of Howard’s spectacularly failed career, his wife Julia’s loneliness and the reality of family poverty. Tragedy never turns to bitterness though, and the characters’ final, tempered hopefulness is a well-earned haven for this long-adrift family.--Stefan Tobler

Review:

(A) heartrending and surprisingly comic family saga...The briskly paced narrative crackles with dry wit, and its abundant surprises will make you weep and guffaw in equal measure. (People Magazine)

A fine novel, about family, migration, identity and the struggle to find and hold onto it. It is also hugely entertaining and very, very funny. (Roddy Doyle)

'The Laments' is a curiously uplifting tale...A quirky, thought-provoking read...(it) reveals some rare narrative gifts...The reader cares about the Laments because their challenges are universally familiar. (Rocky Mountain News)

In THE LAMENTS, George Hagen pulls off a splendid high-wire act, creating one of the most memorable and compelling families since the Flying Wallendas. His writing is luminous, humane, and wonderfully acerbic - as if Evelyn Waugh got a hold of John Irving's characters and handed them all Pimm's No. 1. Hilarious and heartbreaking, this is one of the best debut novels I've read in years. (Peter Blauner, author of THE INTRUDER and MAN OF T)

If there is a better title for a book about family than George Hagen's 'The Laments,' I'm hard-pressed to think of it. In the case of this funny, quirky and picaresque debut novel, the Laments is both a family name as well as the condition of wishing things had been better, different, perfect ... whatever it is we wish for ourselves and our children and our parents...(Hagen) has a great eye for his surroundings, whether physical of psychic...One can't help but like the resilient Laments. (Detriot Free Press)

A vital international journey through the vicissitudes of family life. This story, centering on the timeless theme of a child swapped at birth, is immensely readable, funny, and touching --a complete joy. (Elizabeth Strout, author of AMY AND ISABELLE)

George Hagen's highly entertaining debut novel features an irresistibly headstrong family, a global sweep, and not only a sense of loss and displacement that's perfectly in tune with the world we live in but also a full measure of resilient humanity. (Gary Shteyngart, author of THE RUSSIAN DEBUTANTE'S)

Hagen tells this story of odd juxtapositions with understated humour, skilful language and a satisfying structure...(He) evokes the visionary world of childhood, peopled with such challenges, dreams and mysteries...(An) appealing and gently humorous story. (The Hartford Courant)

Hagen's understanding of the mix of love, banality, humor, and sadness that are the features of family life is deep and nearly flawless: a lovely book. (Kirkus Reviews)

There's a bittersweet cast to (Hagen's) viewpoint, and he doesn't shrink from heartbreaking little details that reveal the characters' vulnerabilities...His intimate knowledge of the work it takes to re-establish life in sometimes hostile new places gives the book authority. (The Miami Herald)

About this edition

• Publisher: Sceptre
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 034083272X
• ISBN 13: 9780340832721
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384