David James Poissant

The Starlings are retiring and moving to Florida, but first there's a last week a the lake house they've just sold. Joined by their adult children and their partners, they have high hopes of a perfect week to cap off the years' of vacations spent there. Their first afternoon out in their boat, a catastrophe strikes, setting the mood for the rest of their time together. Each couple is at a stress point in their relationship, and simmering tensions are not calmed by proximity to one another. show more

This is not a vacation novel. You're not going to fall in love with any of the characters, or want to join them on future gatherings. Instead, this is a compassionate look as some very flawed characters who often behave badly and fail to communicate with the people they love the most. It's exhausting at times, just being with them. The writing is beautiful and never gets in the way of the story. I liked Lake Life, but I do like flawed, difficult characters, of which this book has an abundance. show less

In “Anna Karenina,” Tolstoy remarks that “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Clearly, the Starling clan is an unhappy family in many ways. Lisa, the ornithologist/matriarch, imparts the most stunning metaphor for the Starling family. “Starlings are pesky birds…(but) there’s no denying the beauty of their murmurations as they sweep through the sky in kaleidoscopic formations.” The Starling family does indeed do a lot of secrets show more sweeping and soul searching murmurations during a summer weekend at the family lake home in North Carolina. These include infidelity, childhood death, suicide, pregnancy, all sorts of addictions, jealousy and mental illness. Poissant views the nature of family love, forgiveness and endurance through the lens of this troubled family. But he is less interested in the origins of all this unrest than he is in how it plays out.

Lisa and Richard have decided to sell their run-down vacation home and retire to Florida. They have assembled their adult sons, Michael and Thad, along with their significant others, Diane and Jake, to spend one last weekend there. The accidental drowning of a neighborhood child serves as the spark that ignites the smoldering unrest that has existed in the family for years. Juggling six first-person narratives, Poissant gives us a close and highly subjective examination of familial dysfunction. Lisa struggles with the death of an infant daughter and Richard’s history of infidelity. Richard, a gifted mathematician, can’t understand why his sons have not had more success in their lives. Michael is a closet alcoholic, living beyond his means, and strongly opposed to his wife’s pregnancy. Diane will do anything to keep the baby, including leaving Michael. Thad is an unsuccessful poet living off of Jake, his partner, who is a highly successful painter. Thad is bipolar controlling his suicidal thoughts with cocktails of powerful psychotic medications, marijuana and counselling. Jake is an angry sex addict who wants an open relationship with Thad. Thad needs commitment.

Poissant’s narrative provides a wide menu of contemporary thinking, including politics (Michael is the only conservative), religion, the meaning of art, the nature of artistic talent, the socioeconomics of waterfront vacation property, and especially how to find happiness. He magically portrays a plethora of events from multiple perspectives, slowly controlling revelations. Despite an uplifting feel, the ending offers few pat answers or guarantees of happiness. At least no one throws herself in front of a train. show less

David James Poissant’s Lake Life is an incredibly crafted novel that never fails to hold my attention.

The novel opens with a tragedy that seems to foreshadow the following events that unfold. As a result of this tragedy, readers get a glimpse of the true nature of the Starling family—and trust me, they’re not all that likable. However, I like that Poissant didn’t sugarcoat the family’s flaws and showed readers who they truly are.

Poissant does an excellent job at utilizing imagery show more to create pictures in readers' heads of the events that are taking place in Lake Life. The opening scene of the lake, with the Starling family witnessing a tragic death, still plays in my head. The novel portrays themes such as family tensions, alcoholism, and infidelity. As someone with a close family, I could not relate to the strain of relationships between the Starling family. However, I felt myself sympathizing with the characters that were struggling and couldn’t go to their family members for help. While the narrative and events that take place may not be one's readers can connect and relate to, I felt that Poissant’s choices of how he depicted the story showcased his talent as a writer.

I think Poissant did an excellent job at wrapping up the novel. One of my favorite lines that can be read near the novel’s end is, “... [Stars] do not tell the future, where to go, or why, or, going, what comes next. No the stars she sees let loose their light long ago, light traveling decades, centuries, to reach this telescope” (Poissant 260), stated by Lisa. While this line can be interpreted in different ways, I read this line as meaning that the stars people see are not from the present, but from the past and have been traveling for many years before reaching the moment an individual's eyes lay upon them. This statement can be connected to the unpredictability of life, as seen throughout the novel, and can portray how the past becomes the present. This statement could be Lisa's way of closing the chapter of the Starling family's lake life and starting new as she prepares to welcome new life. show less

In this excellent collection Poissant examines family, marriage,friendship. and death,. How ordinary people bear unbearable losses, how they deal with missed chances and the consequences of actions taken in moments of panic, misunderstanding, and despair.

Heavy material that is treated here with elegance, grace and touches of humor.

The copy I read was from a local public library.