Book Brief - White Picket Fences

White Picket Fences

Susan Meissner

WaterBrook Press (October 6, 2009)

"Neil was a good man. He had given her a good life. They had a beautiful home in an upscale neighborhood. Financial security. Two healthy children. Nice cars. They'd taken vacations to Hawaii, Vail, and Orlando. Neil didn't drink excessively, wasn't abusive, and didn't smoke or gamble or cheat on her. He was active in their church, made beautiful things in his woodshop that he gave away, encouraged her to pursue her own career, didn't berate his kids, didn't annoy the neighbors, didn't stay out latee, and wasn't addicted to the office. He was a good man."

Neil, and his wife Amanda, along with their two children, Chase and Delcey, live the storybook life. When Amanda agrees to keep her neice, Tally, while her irresponsible brother is off in Europe to unearth a family mystery, their picture perfect life begins to show signs of erosion. As Tally and Chase work together on a sociology project family secrets begin to emerge that makes it hard to maintain the facade.

While the multiple storylines are handled very well the characterizations seem to have suffered. Chase and Tally are fully realized but the rest of the family seem stereotypical at best. The emotional drama of the family dealing with buried secrets is affecting but I found that it was the secondary theme of the Holocaust that kept this book interesting for me. It was a bit of a stretch, in fact, to keep those two disparate themes from unraveling the whole book. It all seemed to work to a mildly satisfying conclusion.

A brief mention of a major plot device that seemed a bit contrived. The story is propelled by the gradual recovery of a horrific memory from chase's past. Repressed or recovered memories? I'm a little critical of that whole psychology and was thus required to suspend my skepticism throughout the novel. Ultimately, I can't find myself recommending, or reading again, this particular tale. Susan Meissner is a talented author but this story falls flat.

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

Rating: Borrow