Elizabeth Winthrop, Fireworks

Fireworks

Elizabeth Winthrop

Knopf, Apr 2006, $23.95

ISBN 0307262952

They seemed like a well-adjusted family until their child passed away. Now fortyish writer Hollis Clayton and his wife Clare cannot talk to one another. While he hides behind his hedges with Jack Daniels as his companion in the dunes of the Cape, she flees to her sister's home in Maryland.

That grieving summer of their separation, Hollis sends meaningless letters to his wife while his journal entries to himself contain the passion lacking in what he sends Clare. He torpedoes his career with his editors in Boston when his no care attitude is obvious and he turns to his mistress, wannabe author Marissa for comfort, but Hollis ultimately concludes that Jack makes a more suitable companion for someone like him who no longer embraces life.

This is not an upbeat tale by any stretch of the imagination as the audience meets mostly an alcoholic dumped down Hollis who has not recovered from the shock of his son's death. Clare is predominantly seen through Hollis' stupor so rightfully she seems more of a filtered caricature. Interestingly, how the lad died comes later on in the plot as readers know he passed way and that his parents remain in denial. Though the storyline is thin and Marissa even thinner, Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop provides an interesting character study of a man who, though breathing, is as dead as his son is.

Harriet Klausner