From Publishers Weekly
Collie Flanagan's life is part Grey Gardens and part The Royal Tenenbaums in this beautifully written if unwieldy dramedy debut. Raised on Martha's Vineyard, Collie is the dull link in his flamboyant family: his adulterous, alcoholic father and cruelly pugnacious mother maintain a miserable relationship that overshadows even the overblown personalities of his pigeon-racing uncle and his prep-school failure brother. As storms of irresponsibility rage, Collie lives in quiet, stable success until a one-two punch of family tragedy leaves him reeling. Collie's relationship with his media magnate grandfather becomes contentious as Collie spins out of control and tries wildly different ways to make restitution and become a man. Kelly is a gifted writer (Collie's mother attacks with a verbal pitchfork. Before the night was over, just about everyone in the place had sprung leaks, blood and champagne spurting from all those glamorous human fountains), but her chops as a novelist aren't as refined: Collie is as pallid as the other characters are unbelievable, and though the crazed drama keeps the story moving, it's often incredible. Though hampered by these weaknesses, Collie's quest is worth reading for the elegant prose alone. (Mar.)
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From
In this rousingly pell-mell d?but novel, the tender arc of a bildungsroman is nearly squelched by a backdrop of epic family farce. The โfantastic Flanagansโ of Squibnocket Beach suffer from โcompulsive vividness.โ They brawl and squall without consequences, kept afloat by money โfalling from the sky like ticker tape,โ courtesy of a disapproving and distant media-mogul patriarch. Ma is an aspiring Marxist insurrectionist (โMa collected Commies the way other women accumulate Tupperwareโ) who thinks that being difficult is โthe hallmark of the artistic mindโ; Pop is a skirt-chaser and a drunk. An equally lunatic (and alcoholic) โmaiden uncleโ is entrusted with the actual work of bringing up the kids. All are observed with sardonic affection by the straight-arrow elder son, who lives in the shadow of his wild-card brother. Inevitably, tragedy strikes, but the giddy prose never stops, detonating like a string of firecrackers.
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