Family History

by Dani Shapiro

Book Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets--"a bona fide page turner" (The New York Times Book Review) about the mysteries of teenage pain and family crisis.

Rachel Jensen is perfectly happy: in love with her husband, devoted to their daughter Kate, gratified by her work restoring art. And finally, she's pregnant again. But as Rachel discovers, perfection...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400032113
• ISBN13: 9781400032112
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Family Histronics

Very well written story if you like a lot of melodrama and family histronics. I am not sure what type of reader would find this enjoyable or entertaining other than a famijy member who is going through similar type psychological and emotional problems...just not my cup of tea.

Wrenching domestic drama.

Dani Shapiro's novel, "Family History" is a painful look at the disintegration of a once close-knit family. Ned and Rachel Jensen are a happily married couple who live in a suburb not far from Boston. Ned, who had once hoped to be a working artist, is a popular high school teacher and Rachel is a devoted mother and part-time art restorer. Their daughter, Kate, is bright, athletic, and beautiful. Everything changes when Kate turns thirteen and comes home from camp with a sullen, distant, and rebellious attitude. She begins to show signs of emotional disturbance, and as time goes on, her condition deteriorates. After Rachel learns that she is pregnant, she desperately hopes that their lives will once again be happy and serene. Her hopes are dashed when tragedy strikes and threatens to rip the Jensens apart forever. Dani Shapiro has an intimate writing style that draws the reader into these troubled lives. We feel Rachel's panic as she sees all that she values slipping away from her. Ned is a caring husband and father who has given up his dream to be an artist in order to support the wife and child he adores. He is shocked when he realizes that his sacrifices may all have been in vain. Kate is a lost soul whose sensitivity and hurt overwhelm her and warp her judgment. There are some nicely depicted supporting players in this novel, as well, most notably Rachel's mother, a self-absorbed harridan named Phyllis who is hypercritical and cold towards Rachel. What keeps "Family History" from being just another overwrought soap opera? Shapiro fleshes out her characters thoroughly and she injects elements of hope and compassion into her story that keep the book from sinking under the weight of unrelieved gloom. She poignantly shows that when two people truly love one another, they never stop trying to fix what seems to have been irrevocably broken. "Family History" teeters on the edge of melodrama, but it is saved by Shapiro's moving and compassionate depiction of a family ravaged by life.

True

When I picked up 'Family History' at the local library, I groaned inwardly at such a title and thought it might be boring. Then I started reading it at 11pm last night in bed and at 6pm the next day, I'm almost finished. I've never read a Dani Shapiro novel before, but found this book brilliant because it's true and believeable. As a teenager with chronic depression, I can feel for both Rachel and her daughter Kate. When Rachel and Ned, her husband, pick up Kate from summer camp, they find Kate to have changed, and what they see ends up becoming the tip of the ice-berg. It's difficult for Kate to tell her parents how she feels, and within my depression I have felt much the same way. There are good and bad times throughout it, and though Kate obviously has a far worse mental illness, crossing the border into schizophrenia, I can feel her pain.I suspect Rachel also suffers from depression, but it is less obvious to her, and I am able to feel her pain as well, as in my darker days I think everyone's lives are far better than mine (though I've got a good life, wonderful family and friends.)For these reasons, I've thoroughly enjoyed 'Family History' and am rather upset to be almost at its end.

An AMAZING book

Dani Shapiro has written an amazing book and I could not put it down. On Friday, a friend gave FAMILY HISTORY to me and I read over the weekend. The book details a family in desperate pain...one that is torn apart and yet finds their way back to each other. I identified with Rachel as this hip mom who loves her husband and children. Her disdain for as her hubby who leaves his aspirations and future as a painter to go work for his parents selling real estate ... Her confusion as her beloved daughter scorns her every advance ... Her desire to let the outside world float by as she stays in bed under the covers -- well, I am sure most of us have felt these feelings, even if only for a fleeting moment. Oh, and the way Rachel deals with her mom! The book made me appreciate my life. I loved it and recommend it highly. It is beautifully written, captivating and intensely moving. In my busy world I have time for little reading. So often I start a book and never finish it. Most fiction seems dull when contrasted with my own life. I only wish there were more books like Family History. I enjoyed it and am now going to try another of the author's books.

A Very Fast Read!

How could a family and a marriage fall apart after so many happy years? Rachel Jensen finds out in Dani Shapiro's novel FAMILY HISTORY, the story of her family and how they deal with a child that shows signs of mental illness. The book opens with Rachel sitting in her house alone, watching home movies taken by her husband Ned. She stares at the movie screen and sees herself and her family, yet she does not recognize them. The happy smiles and laughter that she is watching is from a lifetime ago. She still has not adjusted to her new life without her husband or her daughter Kate. The smiles and laughter are only memories. The only remnant of her family is her young son Joshua, who lives with her in this house. He is far too young to really understand how bad things are for his parents and he does not know that he has a sister named Kate. For most of Joshua's life, Kate has not lived with the family.Rachel goes downstairs to check her phone messages and listens to one that asks her to go to Stone Mountain in regards to Kate. Whatever the news is, Rachel is dreading to hear it. There could be no good news if they are calling her about Kate.How did things get to this point? The bulk of the story is told in flashbacks. As the story line slowly progresses and the appointment at Stone Mountain approaches, the reader learns about Ned and Rachel's courtship and their romantic dreams of being artists before their children were even a glimmer in their eyes. The two of them lived in New York and, while trying to make their artistic dreams come true, Rachel learns she is pregnant. With the help of Ned's parents, who also happen to be very wealthy, they buy a fixer-upper near his parents' home in Massachusetts. It's away from the big city and closer to her in-laws, who could help them out as the two of them try to make a new life for their new family. Rachel sees this move as a big change --- along with her pregnancy --- and it becomes one of the pivotal points in their lives. We learn about Kate, who had shown much promise of a bright future. We learn about the event that ultimately sends Kate away from her family, because she is too unstable to be cared for at home by her parents. Neither Ned nor Rachel saw the signs that led to this event. They did not see the signs that would have told them that Kate would start to go through a transformation, from happy-go-lucky preteen to sullen and moody teenager. Close friends said it was just a phase all girls go through and Rachel believed it for a while. Then things started to get worse.They did not predict the unexplainable tantrums and mood swings Kate would begin to experience: her foul language at home, shoplifting incidences and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Again, this all could have been a phase that Kate was going through. No one would have believed that things would get so bad that Kate would have the power to break apart and destroy their family and nearly ruin a marriage and a love that should have la

A family falling apart

FAMILY HISTORY by Dani ShapiroFAMILY HISTORY is a story of a woman's struggle to keep her family together and herself sane after a series of events threatens to hurt her marriage and tear it apart. Rachel Jensen at one point in her life was able to say that she had the perfect life. She was not financially rich by any means, but she could vouch that her family was a happy one, and her marriage was solid and full of love and laughter. There wasn't anything she felt she lacked monetarily, and this was important to her, since throughout their marriage they had to prove to their parents that they could indeed make it financially on the type of dreams they were shooting for. She knew she was the envy of others, and would never have thought that this world that she was familiar with was about to come crashing down around her. The book opens to a scene with Rachel sitting alone in her bedroom, wallowing in self-pity as she watches old home movies of her husband and her daughter Kate laughing and smiling. It is a movie of happier times, before the baby was born, and before their daughter Kate started to change right before their eyes. The reader knows immediately that there is something terribly wrong, as she is sitting in her bedroom alone in the dark. Her husband no longer lives with her, and their daughter has not lived with them in quite a while. All that is left in her life is baby Josh, and he is far too young to comprehend that anything is wrong with their family. The destructive events that occur that destroy the harmony of the family are centered on Kate, who by this time is a young teenager going through a lot of extreme emotional and behavioral changes. Rachel is told that this is just a phase all teenagers go through, and Rachel believes it for a while, but when Kate's behavior becomes so hard to manage, Rachel is not sure what to think anymore. The book is told in parallel - we see flashbacks of her courtship with her husband Ned and their early years together in New York. At the same time we are back in the present day, where Ned and Rachel are worrying about the future of their daughter Kate, who is in an institution for troubled young adults. I felt this method of story-telling helped keep the action moving, and kept my interest in the characters alive as I got to know them starting from their younger years together and through their current messed up lives.The climax of events leads to a horrible accident that could have been prevented, and that event in turn leads to yet another horrible incident that causes the break up of the family. It is a living nightmare that they are going through, and no one knows if there is any relief in sight.FAMILY HISTORY by Dani Shapiro is a book that was so intense that it was probably the fastest read I've had in a long time. It's one of those books that you can't put down. I want to compare this book to Elizabeth Berg's best novels, which often center on strong women or women who are trying