Home Repair

People believed bad things came in threes. Eve thought they came in packs, like wolves.

If troubles come in packs, nobody would know better than Eve. When her husband simply drives off during her summer yard sale under the guise of running errands and doesn't return, life becomes very complicated for Eve, and that's only the beginning. Suddenly finding herself a single mom to her two children, teenage Marcus and nine-year-old Noni, Eve is adrift. With Chuck's departure, it seems that everything in Eve's life is coming unglued. Her aging mother, Charlotte Dunrea, moves from the south to Binghamton, ostensibly to help, but actually needing much more help than she's able give. Eve fears for her job when an unhinged co-worker calls her show more purpose into question. Her one possible romantic interest seems hardly interested in her. She can't even take her dogs to the park and train them on the racquetball courts that have fallen into disuse for the winter without raising the ire of a slightly frightening, if ultimately goodhearted, park worker. All this is not to mention her almost ex-husband who seems to be popping up on the phone and even in person, just when Eve thinks she might be able to move on from the wreckage of their relationship.

Home Repair is a book that calls to mind the sort of books Laura Moriarty (The Center of Everything, The Rest of Her Life) writes. It's the kind of book where nothing especially major seems to happen, but it serves as a slice of the life of memorable and sympathetic characters who remind us of ourselves. It's hard not to feel for Eve as she navigates the everyday trials that are piling up at her front door even as she tries to adjust to tackling problems all on her own. Her two children, Marcus, a politically inclined gifted public speaker who can't seem to get his driver's license, and Noni, who, at nine years, seems preternaturally wise and yet unable to grasp why her father would simply leave one summer day, easily draw our sympathy as well.

Home Repair is a great story of a woman finding herself and discovering just what she is capable of on her own. It's a story about family and how sometimes the best families aren't always made up of people who are actually related. It's even a story of how it's never too late for love to make a difference in our lives.

Sometimes the story is a little too fragmented, and sometimes I thought it might benefit from a good, compelling first person narration that packs more of an emotional punch, as seen in Laura Moriarty's books, but ultimately Home Repair is a story with heart and is a well-worth-reading contribution to that "genre" of books that exposes the lives of all those characters that are just like you and me while at the same time making us think twice about the good things in our lives that are all too easy to take for granted. show less

From its opening pages, "Home Repair" proves to be one of those novels that manage to walk successfully the fine line between tragedy and comedy.

It is the day of the family’s big garage sale and Eve is hoping to rid herself of the useless junk cluttering her house; if she can make a little extra money in the process, all the better. Noni, her nine-year-old daughter, commandeers the cash box and proves to be a ruthless negotiator, refusing to take less for anything than the price her mother has written on its price sticker. Marcus, Eve’s teen age son, comes outside only long enough to salvage a few of his favorite childhood items and carry them right back inside the house. Chuck, Eve’s husband, is simply not interested and decides show more to run an errand instead of hanging around to help Eve and Noni keep an eye on things.

All in all, Eve experiences a typical American garage sale, complete with the line-jumpers that arrive four hours early hoping to score the good stuff before the sale officially opens. She makes a little money, gets rid of a few things that had just been taking up space anyway and, by the end of the sale, is ready to give the rest away just not to have to carry anything back inside - nothing really unusual about her day. But then it hits her that her husband is not coming home and that he has chosen a silly garage sale to cover his exit, something she will have to explain to the kids and her mother.

Thus begins the rest of Eve’s life, maybe not the life she would have picked if given a choice, but one she will come to find that she is perfectly capable of handling. Her immediate reaction may have caused her to lose so much weight on the “heartbreak diet” that even her nine-year-old would grow worried about her, but Eve is about to discover just what an adventure the rest of her life will be. When several months later Chuck has the gall to show up unannounced for Thanksgiving dinner, he is shocked to find the table filled with people he never expected to see: a young Korean couple and their children, two of Eve’s co-workers, the big African-American caretaker of the local public park, and Eve’s mother. Though Chuck could not know it, the table is filled with some of the best friends Eve will ever have.

Frankly, Liz Rosenberg has surprised me. "Home Repair" is the kind of novel I generally pick up only reluctantly because of bad previous experiences with books that, at least on the surface, appear to be so largely geared toward a female readership. This, I am happy to report, is not one of those novels. Rosenberg made me care about Eve and her friends and what happened to them. I fell in love with the Marcus and Noni characters and the way they supported each other during their mother’s crisis. And I was cheered and inspired by the way Eve’s courage and hope are rewarded.

Liz Rosenberg says that one of Home Repair’s “ideal readers” is the “man awake reading at three thirty in the morning.” Strangely enough, I finished "Home Repair" just before four this morning myself (while not quite the insomniac Rosenberg envisions, I am pretty close), marking me as one of the book’s ideal readers -and one well satisfied with the experience.

Rated at: 4.0 show less

It was suggested to me that I read this book. A friend of the author had read my blog and told me this book might be one I’d like. I’ve been wary of books offered up to me. Lately I’ve had nothing but disappointments.Not this book. Not sure how the friend of the author knew this, but this book was an absolutely perfect match for me…a main character, Eve, who has been widowed and now abandoned by a second husband, leaving his family during a garage sale, no less. Left with two kids to raise. A shaky job. Odd and unstable friends. A cranky mother. Doesn’t sound like we’re going to see a happily-ever-after ending here. But strangely we do, though not in ways we’d ever expect. The author has that wonderful ability to take life show more seriously while also laughing it off. A lovely read. show less

Eve has already lost one husband – her beloved Ivan who went out to get her chocolate ice cream and ended up dying in a car crash. So when her second husband, the handsome free-spirit Chuck, drives away from their upstate New York home on fine summer day (in the middle of a garage sale), Eve instinctively knows he has left her and her children. Eve gathers up the remnants of her yard sale and digs deep to find the courage to move forward. Her teenage son from her first marriage (Marcus), and her precocious nine year old daughter from her union with Chuck (Nona), along with Eve’s fiesty, sharp-tongued mother Charlotte (who moves from Tennessee to be close to her abandoned daughter) motivate Eve to keep going despite her broken show more heart.

Home Repair is the story of what it means to experience love and loss, and yet still find fulfillment in the small things that life offers. Liz Rosenberg’s prose reminds me a lot of Anne Tyler – the quirky, lovable characters and matter of fact narrative of ordinary life peppered with all the sadness and laughter that comes with it, ring true. Eve’s journey is not a straight line – she takes one step forward and three steps back – but, her persistence and sincerity, her love for her children, and her hope for romantic love again, all work to her advantage. Despite all of Eve’s setbacks, she is able to find the beauty that still exists in her life.

Rosenberg’s strength is in the development of her characters – my favorite of whom was Charlotte, an aging woman whose crusty exterior belies a loving heart. Rosenberg captures the bittersweet process of aging, as well as the connections between grandparents and children, and the ambivalence between mothers and daughters.

Charlotte Dunrea, the meticulous, the upright, was beginning to drip gravy down her front, to spill coffee in her lap. The seat of her slacks sagged. She complained that it was harder to do everything – to get in and out of the car with Marcus. You could see what an effort it was, getting up out of the kitchen chair after dinner, clinging to the table for support. She might need a walker soon. She was slowing down. It seemed to Eve as if her stubborn little mother was now a permanent fixture in their lives, and the only way she’d ever leave was for her to be carried out, feet first. – from Home Repair, page 48 -

I enjoyed this lovely book. My only complaint was a minor one – that Rosenberg makes a small error re: medical information (being a Physical Therapist, I am probably more tuned into the nuances around medical procedures than the average reader). But, aside from that, the pages of this book turned effortlessly. I began to feel like the characters in the book were old friends, and I regretted saying good-bye to them. I hope Rosenberg is working on her next novel because I look forward to reading more from this talented debut author.

Home Repair is a mixture of happy and sad, laughter and tears – it reflects the real stuff of our ordinary lives. Readers who chose to go along on Eve’s journey from joy to loss and back to happiness will find it a satisfying trip.

Recommended. show less

In a short "Inspiration for Home Repair" question and answer section at the end of this edition of the book, the author is asked if the novel is a sad one or a comic one. She answers that it is both, "Laughter and tears are such close companions, sometimes you hardly know where one ends and the other begins." And that is certainly true of story told in this charming, enjoyable novel.

Eve has had to face tragedy in the past, when thirteen years ago, when she was just 33, her beloved first husband Ivan was killed in a car accident, leaving her to raise their son Marcus, now a high school student. When her second husband, Chuck, disappears, leaving his wife, stepson and their 9 year old daughter Noni, not to mention his mother in law show more waiting for her drive to the airport, the cause is rather different. He packs his car up and sneaks off in the middle of a yard sale. And at first Eve does not react terribly well to this event. She stops eating, is losing weight, showing up for her job as an administrator in the art department of the local NY State University in layers of wrinkled clothes. Afraid that her fix-me-up house is going to crash down around her ears, blue smoke pouring out of her aged car, concerned about the constant cut backs at work, two children at home, each with their own issues, from high school dances and first loves to the disappearance of their father, she is overwhelmed with facing this all alone.

But she is not alone. Little does she know a whole cast of characters will become part of her life and take it in directions she could never have foreseen. And it is maybe that cast that I found the most delightful aspect of this book. We have Charlotte Dunrea, her mother, a real "character", who moves up from Tennessee to "help out", Jonah, the African American parks department worker, Korean graduate student Sook-yun and perhaps my favorite character, his Korean wife Mia, a woman with hidden talents and strengths, just to name a few.
There are tragedies...heartbreaking deaths and funerals.
There is high humor...as when Eve acts as the driver for her mother and her new boyfriend, a fellow nursing home resident, when they go out on a date...and almost get thrown out of Applebee's.
There is a life threatening act of bravery, there is love to be found in unexpected places. There is the support of family, the help of friends and all ending with a surprising and totally charming wedding.

"Why does anyone bother to become friends with anyone, or adopt a child, or own a pet, for that matter. We're all going to die sooner or later, if that's what you're thinking," Charlotte said. "That's life. Nothing we can do to change that. We're all going to someday say good-bye. We're all going to have to cry, little girl," she said, putting one hand out to touch Eve's hair. The touch did not quite happen, but hovered, and then settled back down, like a butterfly, still quivering. "We might as well be happy while we can."

Rosenberg is a beautiful writer, her work as a poet often evident in her descriptions, telling a nice story with some charming characters. That's a lot to be happy about. show less

Eve’s mother is visiting and Eve’s having a garage sale. Her husband Chuck isn’t really interested in it, so he leaves. The problem is, he doesn’t return. He calls a few times, telling Eve not to worry, but she’s not really sure what’s going on. Eve’s mother decides not to return to Tennessee so that she can “help” Eve. Eve finds herself coping with grief, politics at work, an aging mother and two children.

Eve, the main character of Home Repair, by Liz Rosenberg is a strong character that most women can relate to. She’s trying to juggle all that life has thrown at her and sometimes she succeeds beautifully and sometimes she finds herself crying in the closet. I really liked Eve and rooted for her and her kids. show more Eve’s mother, Mrs. Dunrea, is a rather crotchety character, and will probably remind most people of someone they’ve had to deal with in their lives. Some of the secondary characters, who weren’t so well developed, ended up playing larger roles than I expected and I really wasn’t attached to them. I really appreciate the message of this book – that we can deal with what life gives us and often times become stronger because of it. The writing is fine, but the book was just okay for me. show less

Years after Eve loses her husband to an unexpected car crash, her husband Chuck walks out on her during a garage sale, leaving her to pick up the pieces and take care of their two children on her own. With an intrusive mother who overshares her opinions and brewing trouble at work, Eve is soon dropping weight (abandonment and grief make for a great diet plan, who knew?) and trying to help her children and mother on her own. As kind-hearted strangers reach out to offer their support, Eve finds her life and her Thanksgiving dinner surrounded by new friends and potential love interests. This is a warm story of how to keep going on when bad things just seem to keep on happening. I enjoyed the character development and the humor in this show more story. There were also a few twists as the author tried to trick the reader and build suspense, which was particularly enjoyable. In all, a good quick read with a cast of interesting believable characters. show less