Spoonbenders

I'm torn between calling this a work of science fiction, fantasy, or plain fiction, though there's nothing plain about it. The protagonists are the Amazing Telemachus family. Patriarch Teddy, now in his 70s, was a top stage magician who feigned magical powers. His three now adult children and grandchildren, however, have true magical abilities, which they inherited from their late grandmother, Maureen Telemachus, a talented astral traveler. Youngest Buddy sees the future, middle offspring Frankie has unreliable telekinesis, and oldest Irene is a human lie detector. Her teenage son Matty, at the start of the novel, has discovered his ability to travel outside his body. Despite of or due to their abilities and one-time claim to fame as a show more family act, before they were disgraced on national television, the Telemachuses are a dysfunctional bunch, constantly at odds with each other and their own ambitions.

Frankie, in financial difficulty, is looking for a quick fix. Irene, unable to accept the everyday lies people tell her, is distrustful of everyone. Buddy, having seen a bleak future, is stuck trying to live out the life he's foreseen. Teddy has befriended the daughter-in-law of the mobster he once worked for until things went sour. And Matty has discovered both the thrill of OBEs (out of body experiences) and puberty. Then, to give the dynamic more gravity, there's the specter of the government operative who once used psychics to spy on Russians during the Cold War. Maureen had been his star psychic warrior and he's hoping one of her grandchildren, mainly Matty, can fill her shoes.

Gregory weaves the stories of the Telemachus family in alternating viewpoint chapters, slowly bringing all the disparate elements together in a madcap climax that is both thrilling and poignant. I came to love these quirky characters and I would love to read more about them. show less

Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory is a 2017 Knopf publication.

This book was a real treat for me! It’s eccentric, hilarious, a madcap family saga, and a thoroughly entertaining fantasy.

I am showing my age here, but I do remember stage shows during the 1970’s where people performed variations of telekinesis, such as bending spoons with their minds. I had forgotten all about these stage/magic shows until I saw the title of this book and I knew I had to read it.

This story is centered around ‘The Amazing Telemachus family’, featuring Teddy Telemachus, the family patriarch, who is, in truth, a con artist. But, his wife, Maureen, is the real deal. She really is psychic and their children have inherited her paranormal abilities. Irene show more can tell if someone is lying or telling the truth, Frankie can move objects with his mind, and Buddy can see the future.

The family stage act was amazing indeed, until they were outed as frauds on the ‘Mike Douglas Show’.
From there the family tragically spiraled into relative obscurity.

The book is set in 1995, where we find that Maureen has passed on at a tragically young age, Teddy is still running his tried and true scams, Irene is a divorced single mother who has moved back into her family home with her son, Matty, and Frankie is married with three daughters. But, Buddy, seems to have lost his sanity, constantly beginning a project, but never finishing it, and is pretty much mute. No one seems to know quite what he’s up to.

Employing the use of flashbacks, we learn how Teddy and Maureen met, and how the government became aware of her unique gifts, why she decided to work with them, the profound affect her life and death had on her children, and how their unusual abilities shaped them into the adults they became.

Matty becomes a central character in the story as he is seemingly the one grandchild who has inherited his family’s paranormal gifts. He is the one who needs to discover his family history, especially that of his grandmother, and must be protected from government employees who would like to use his abilities to their advantage.

In one way, this is Matty’s coming of age story, but it is mostly a family saga, which spans over three generations.

I loved the nostalgia this story brought back. The seventies, The Mike Douglas Show, the hardcore fascination with psychic phenomenon and ESP and so on, but the nineties! OMG! AOL disc, online chat rooms, Gateway computers and VHS tapes- no- I can’t say I miss any of those things, but it was fun to have a book set in this decade.

“Nothing killed nostalgia for your childhood home like moving back into it”

This family is not exactly role model material. They have trouble with the mob, run cons, and curse up a blue streak sometimes, and many other quirky flaws and general strangeness.

‘Once a man had committed emotionally to the con, it was near impossible to claw his way back to objectivity.”

At the heart of the story is the emerging connection between Maureen, who, although she’s been gone for many years, still communicates with Teddy, via letters that arrive in blue envelopes, and her grandson, Matty.

The author did an amazing job of building a charming and fantastical story around connecting time frames and family generations.

I rarely say anything about content, mainly because we are dealing with art and context, but I couldn’t help but think how much broader the reach such a book might have if not for the language used. It wasn’t necessary, in my opinion, and took away from the story’s charisma.

There were a few other questionable scenes, but with just a small tweak here or there, this book really could have a mass appeal, for young or old alike.

Besides this one complaint, I thought the characters are very well constructed, believable, and although quite dysfunctional, I liked them, warts and all.

There are a few poignant moments, a little romance, and some hilarious antics and dialogue, a little mystery and suspense, plenty of action and adventure, and lots and lots of intrigue, mingling with the paranormal whimsy I found myself completely wrapped up in.

“The thing about skeletons was, you never knew how much space they were taking up in the closet until you got rid of them.”

The plot may appear to ramble down various dead -end paths, making one wonder where all this is leading, but amazingly, the threads all converge into one huge grand finale that really did feel like pure magic.

Overall, this is an offbeat, but utterly charming and delightful tale. Even if you don’t normally indulge in the paranormal or fantasy genres, I think the deeper implications will resonate, and before long you just might find yourself as enchanted by it as I was.

4 stars show less

I read this as part of the Nebula finalist packet.

This isn't my usual kind of book. It's profane and crude from the start--with some intimate insight into the mind of a teenage boy--but the writing was good and the premise so compelling, I couldn't help but read on. I'm glad I did. This is a book that feels ready-made to be a wacky movie with an eccentric ensemble cast. The book hops perspectives among the Telemachus family and also flows back and forth in time, but it's not confusing in the least.

One of the prime POVs is Matty, the aforementioned teenage boy, who in the mid-1990s present day of the book is fourteen and obsessed with his family's past success (and astounding failure) in show business. His mother works hard and has show more acted like the mom of her brothers and father since her own mother died of cancer at 31; this loss devastated the family forevermore. One of Matty's uncles has fallen hard into debt with the mob, and his other uncle is the World's Greatest Psychic and adrift in the flow of time as he prepares for a dire upcoming event. Then there's the family patriarch, Teddy, a grand charlatan. The way these characters and their plots twine together is extraordinary.

Really, it's a book to be enjoyed for the technical elements alone (plotting, pacing, and most of all, dialogue) but it's a darn fun read, too. show less

Spoonbenders is one of those novels that has a little bit of everything. It has gangsters and the CIA. It has psychic ability and con men. It has larger-than-life characters and those that garner almost no attention. It will make you laugh (a lot), tear at your heartstrings, and make you appreciate the craziness that is family. It does all this in one entertaining story that charms its way into your heart and lingers upon finishing.

The novel follows the Telemachus family as they live their daily lives. What starts out as separate incidents and experiences among the family members comes together into a family crisis that befits this crazy family. As part of the build-up to the crisis, we learn more about the family’s past, the tragedy show more that befell them and the hard luck that seemingly followed them after their act fell apart. These flashbacks do much to develop each member and flesh them out as people as well as explain more of the family dynamic. The story is outlandish but befits the family given their associates and friends as well as their own over-the-top personalities. The result is a story that would simply not work with any other cast but is perfect for this family and highly entertaining.

Given the large cast of characters, it would be easy to assume they are one-dimensional. Given the inclusion of the mob as well as the government, one’s assumptions might also include the idea that the characters are caricatures as well. In this regard, Mr. Gregory dashes all expectations by creating characters who leap off the page and into your heart. The entire Telemachus clan becomes your family, and you are effortlessly enfolded into their drama. Even the secondary characters find ways to break their stereotypical roles to become people we can understand and to whom it is relatively easy to relate. Since the family is the novel, relating to them, laughing and crying alongside them is essential.

In Spoonbenders, the Telemachus family is the story and the story is the Telemachus family. Like other family dramas, it reminds you that you cannot choose your family, and it also reminds you that family always supports one another. Along the way, you fall in love with this larger-than-life group that embraces life, its successes, and its failures. show less

The thing about Daryl Gregory is always that he can *write*. Like, a lot of times he writes stuff I don’t especially want to read, but even so, it’s always well written. And when he does write stuff I want to read, generally I have a great time. And I had a — mostly great time with this? But there were issues.

First, though, what I liked. It’s well-written, obviously. It’s a very fast and compelling read. One of the things I love is when authors take improbable concepts — people with secret powers! Cthulhu living under a small town in Maine! — and really run with them, make them *real*, consider how things would really turn out. Gregory is great at that. I enjoyed reading about all the ways psychic powers make your life show more harder and more complicated. The plot had nice twists and turns. And, honestly, I enjoyed some of these characters a lot.

So, the not-great parts. Well, there’s a lot of public embarrassment in this, and I hate that. Also, there’s also a trans woman in here, as basically the sole queer rep, and she’s a sex worker. That felt a little stereotyping. But then, she has a fairly good outcome, even if it’s only in the final pages of the story. But, I don’t know. I still wasn’t comfortable with it.

Overall, I did enjoy this, though I’m not entirely sure who I’d recommend this to. show less

It's no secret, I love family stories, this one is no exception. A heartbroken patriarch, his children, grandchildren, and their psychic abilities. I enjoyed getting to know this quirky family, can't wait to share this book with others this summer!

Family dynamics can be hard, but even more so when most of the family has some sort of psychic ability. Then add in the widower father, some drama with the idiotic middle brother and his run ins with the Mob, assorted parent and kid relationships across the generations and a selectively mute youngest brother who has their family home in disarray with crazy home improvement projects and you have the Telemachus family. They really do put the fun in dysfunctional. I really enjoyed this book, I got the audiobook from the library and listened in the car mostly so it took a while. The character depth and the complexity of family relations, great writing, and interesting intertwined stories had me hooked beginning to end. 5/5 stars ⭐️