Two stars. How nice that it wasn't a one-star like the previous five in a row I've written. SPOILERS. Trigger warnings: domestic violence, drug dealing, child death, child abuse, child neglect, child abandonment, pregnancy complications, homophobia, misogyny, racism, others.

This is a long book. For the first half of the book, I thought it was a stylistic choice that worked. Pages-long narrative passages from different characters' POVs are the bulk of the book. Mostly it's Valerie talking about how much she loves her kids and yearns for a cozy life, but didn't get that. She wanted nine kids, the amount she grew up with, but stopped at five due to an emergency hysterectomy. Five kids alone is a lot. Nine is--(shakes head). Jack, her husband, never wanted any kids. He didn't communicate this to her before they married. He asked her father's permission to marry her when they'd only known each other six weeks. Weeks! Valerie was eighteen and Jack was twenty-five. So they were around the ages my parents were when they got married after dating a year: my mom was nineteen and my dad was twenty-four, and by this point they had two babies. Valerie's dad almost, almost forbade his daughter's marriage. For whatever horribly irresponsible reason, he let them go ahead. My parents' families were each horrified, and my mom's family stopped talking to them both. The circumstances and generations between my parents' marriage (1989) and the two fictional characters (1950s) couldn't have been more different, but I compared them both.

Valerie, at eighteen, is super naive and doesn't know enough about sex to communicate her emotions and needs to Jack. He couldn't care less. It's stated by them both that they barely know each other, yet they married anyway. They constantly misinterpret each other's actions and can't communicate at -all-. It was well-written, but emotionally awful to read. It was a great backdrop to how it affected their behavior. It was filler done right, which is so tricky. This, I thought for the first half of the book. Valerie and Jack, despite being totally different people with wildly different values, stay married for twelve years before any action happens in the book. The action begins at the 45% mark of the ebook edition I read. Jack is a serious creep towards tons of women and despises them. He regularly cheats on Valerie, and blames both her and the women he has sex with. He hits Valerie and his kids repeatedly.

Priscilla, one of the younger of the five kids, falls off the roof trying to avoid a blow from her father. Her death is a tragedy Jack absolves himself of guilt from. Valerie blames herself for it. She understandably develops mental health issues--she has no support system, her priest constantly tells her to stay in her marriage, and therapy is not part of her worldview. She later goes to a sanitarium for a year. Her kids all leave and the book gets boring. She runs her own business, and the book feels too long. She stands up to her husband and I wished it'd happened sooner. ( )

Raised in a large, loving, closely-knit Irish Catholic family living in Vermont, Valerie O'Connor is a sheltered and innocent young woman who comes of age during the 1950s. At the age of eighteen, Valerie meets and falls desperately in love with twenty-five-year-old Jack Marsh - a handsome, dashing Korean War veteran and a member of the Air Force. Valerie has been raised with the belief that a wife is subservient to her husband and a mother must keep her family together no matter what. However, little does she know that she is about to begin a relationship that is doomed from the start.

Jack Marsh is a damaged man; a man whose inner demons cause him to take his fears and insecurities out on his wife and five children. During their many years of marriage, Valerie has learned to say nothing when Jack, now an airline mechanic, arrives home after midnight, silent and emotionally distant. She ignores the shirts that smell of strange perfume and the handkerchiefs smeared with suspicious lipstick stains. She endures without complaint the bouts of drunken rage, the sudden bursts of violence, the morning after scenes of devastatingly sincere, choking remorse.

And, whatever the consequences, Valerie will never discuss such private issues with her children; who are themselves too terrified to speak lest they become their father's next victims. To make matters worse, Jack moves Valerie and their children all the way across the country, taking Valerie away from her family, isolating her from the very people who know her and care for her the most. Too proud to ask for help or to admit her failure as a wife and a mother, Valerie is unable to protect either herself or her children from Jack's increasingly visible and physically violent rages.

As they grow up, the five Marsh children will carve out their own very different futures. One by one, pushed to the extreme, the children will manage to escape their fractured home. In one fashion or another, each child will ultimately leave, until they are all gone - even Ricky, the youngest son and the one who is perhaps the most troubled. The only one left is Jack, and Valerie finally must face the reality of her marriage and her life.

And then, as if out of the ashes, another generation begins. Will history repeat itself? Valerie's children worry, and even though they have successfully escaped their dysfunctional family, they will never escape the devastating effects it has had on each of their lives. This is a powerful story of a marriage begun with the best of intentions, but cursed by a legacy of violence that will have shocking consequences - a story that resonates with us all.

I absolutely loved this book; couldn't put it down. In my opinion, Susan R. Sloan is an excellent writer. This is only the third book by Ms. Sloan that I've read, but it most certainly will not be the last one that I read. I give this book an A+! - if I could give it an A+++!, I most certainly would! :) ( )

When Valerie O'Connor firs lays eyes on dashing young Air Force veteran Jack Marsh in the summer of 1955, she falls instantly and hopelessly in love.
A sheltered and innocent eighteen-year-old from a large, catholic family, she has been taught that a wife should be subservient to her husband and a mother must keep her family together no matter what. She has no idea that she is about to enter a marriage that is doomed from the start. In the years to come, Valerie will say nothing when Jack, now an airline mechanic, comes home after midnight, silent and emotionally distant. She will ignore the shirts that smell of strange perfume and the handkerchiefs smeared with suspicious lipstick stains. She will endure the bouts of drunken rage, the sudden burst of violence, the morning after scenes of choking remorse. And she will discuss none of this with her children, themselves too terrified to speak lest they become their father's next victim.
As they grow up, the five Marsh children will carve out their own very different futures and manage to escape the devastating effects it has on their lives.
A powerful, realistic story of love and fear, rage and regret, and the patters of brutality and silence that can haunt generations of one family, Behind Closed Doors is a portrait of a marriage begun with the best intentions, but cursed by a legacy that has shattering consequences. ( )