The Laments Book

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 ToblerRead More