The Piper's Son

This book about love, guilt, and forgiveness in the contexts of family and friendship is so good that it’s hard for me not to feel overcome with the emotion that arises from reading a wonderful book. It pulls you into the world of the story and as you find out more about each character, you can’t help but become more attached to each, until at the end, you feel bereft when that final page is reached. How sad it will be not to “hear from” these characters anymore, who have become so real to me. How wonderful to find an author who makes one feel so bereft.

The story is told from the alternating points of view of Tom Mackee, age 21, and his aunt Georgie, age 42.

Tom is the son of Dominic Finch Mackee, known as “the pied piper” show more because others – particularly his siblings - have always copied whatever he did. Dom’s sister Georgie is his twin, and is now pregnant by her ex-husband Sam, who has a lovely, shy six-year old son Callum by another woman (which was the cause of Georgie and Sams breakup). Dom’s younger brother Joe was one of the fifty some people killed on the subway in London in July 2005 when Islamic suicide bombers blew up trains across the city. His body was never recovered, and no one in this close, contentious but loving family has ever been able to reach closure. Over 40 years earlier, the father of Dominic and Georgie was declared missing in Vietnam, and his body was never recovered either. Although the twins never knew any other dad besides their stepfather Bill, they have never wanted to accept Bill – it might jinx the possibility that their dad, Thomas Finch, could one day come home.

Joe’s death led to a host of complications in the family, from Georgie and Sam getting back together, to Dom falling deep into alcoholism and leaving his family, and Tom’s mother and sister moving to Brisbane. Tom has had his own problems, including dropping out of the university, hanging out either drunk or stoned with losers the whole year, and blowing off all of his former friends, those people from the book Saving Francesca with whom he previously had close bonds. One of them, Tara, he was even in love with.

All these dysfunctions come home to roost when Tom is evicted and moves in with Georgie, and Dom comes back, sober, and also moves in with Georgie, and Georgie copes with the growing discomfort and emotional volatility of her pregnancy, and her strained relations with Sam and Callum.

Discussion: This is a totally character-driven novel, with dialogue that seems astonishingly authentic and with character growth that pushes its way through pain in a way that makes you want to hold every character in the book. And what love this family has, in spite of everything and in spite of the hurt they dole out to one another. Listen to this memory Tom has of him and his father when he was small:

"‘I was shaking like crazy and I remember my father took my hand and asked me if I was scared. But I lied and told him I wasn’t and he just looked at me and said, ‘Well, I am, so you’re going to have to hold my hand tight.’”

And Tom, so believably awkward with Tara when face-to-face with her, is so much more romantic in his thoughts. When he finds out she was at the same place he was many years ago:

"Maybe she’d always been there. Maybe strangers enter your heart first and then you spent the rest of your life searching for them.”

The Piper’s Son is a follow-up or companion volume to Saving Francesca. It takes place five years later, and it isn’t necessary to have read the first to enjoy this one. But by reading it first, you will know more about the friends who love Tom like family, and grant him the same kind of space, and criticism, and acceptance that loving families do with one another.

Although marketed as a YA book, like other books by Marchetta, I feel it is more accurately described as a crossover book; indeed, Tom is 21, and the other main character, Tom’s Aunt Georgie, is 42. It could be said that Tom "grows up" in this book, but it’s certainly not in the way that would happen were he fifteen.

Evaluation: This is a lovely, lovely book. The family dynamics and dialogue brought Tana French to mind for me a bit, but of course French adds murder and mystery to her books. Here, we just have a family with too many members seeking oblivion, and the story of how they fight their way back to redemption, through time, patience, and above all, love. show less

Marchetta does rely a little too heavily on psychoanalyzing to us how the characters relate to each other, a problem I hadn’t noticed in her previous books. But mostly that bothered me because I didn’t need it. It’s a mark of her skill that I knew these people — where they needed to go and how hard it would be to get there — even though I was dropped in at the middle of the story… and that I loved them even though many of them were jerks who made awful mistakes. (Full review at http://www.parenthetical.net/2012/03/13/review-the-pipers-son-by-melina-marchett...

Edit 31/08/11: After re-reading some of my favourite parts of this book, I decided to overlook what made me decide to give it 4 instead of 5 stars before. It's just too good for anything less than 5.

Original Review
First I have to explain why I'm not giving this book the full five stars it seems everyone else is giving it. Likely it is just me being stupid and inappreciative of subtle beauties but I thought towards the beginning there were too many parts of the book that lost me. I understood that the writing was great but I couldn't grasp where the story was going or the point behind it and I spent about half of the first 80 pages getting distracted.

And then... I got it. No, I really did. It was the kind of story that is meant to be show more subtle but turns out all the more meaningful for it. [a:Melina Marchetta|47104|Melina Marchetta|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1277655889p2/47104.jpg] is undoubtedly a fantastic writer who creates very believable and imperfect characters. Tom, let's be honest, is a little shit, he deliberately says things he knows will hurt people and he's just generally not a very nice guy. But you feel his pain too. This book is an example of the good kind of angst, the kind that leaves the reader feeling just as wounded as the characters in question.

The vast array of troubled characters who have experienced all kinds of heartbreak and hurt could have turned this novel into something cliched, melodramatic and soap opera-ish. On the contrary, the author conveys nothing but raw, gut-twisting emotion; it's difficult not to at least get teary-eyed at some point.

Also, I had to compare Tom's one and a half night stand turned I-won't-admit-it-but-I-desperately-need-you with Tara Finke to the love angst of Adam in [b:Where She Went|8492825|Where She Went (If I Stay, #2)|Gayle Forman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312523480s/8492825.jpg|10706553]. Not because the relationships themselves are particularly similar, but because I experienced a similar depth of emotion told in very different ways. It has to be said, even though it has already been said by many others before, the scene where Tom goes down on Tara and thinks about the bell line from the poem. Oral sex goes poetic? It's oddly beautiful.

I don't suppose I wrote this review for any other reason than I couldn't help myself. I mean, it's not as if the book needed some more raving about, the many reviews already shout it out pretty loudly. So, you know, if you haven't read this book... you know what to do. show less

I was looking forward to Melina Marchetta's forthcoming novel until I discovered that The Piper's Son is a sequel-of-sorts to Saving Francesca. Then I didn't know whether to be thrilled or frightened. Saving Francesca is one of my favourite novels - I've read it too many times, I quote or refer to it frequently, I love it to pieces - and I wasn't sure that I wanted to know where Francesca and her friends were 5 years later. Not if finding out would change my opinions of Saving Francesca. I was emotionally invested in the characters before I even picked up the book!

I need not have worried. The Piper's Son leaves me feeling about Francesca and her friends exactly the same way as I feel about them in Saving Francesca. (I didn't like show more everything that had since happened to them - but that's life, that's realistic - and I loved the way their friendships had survived beyond high school.)
And anyway - the book isn't about Francesca. It's about one of her former school friends, Tom Mackee. Tom's life is a bit of a mess. He's dropped out of uni and lost contact with his old school friends, and he's still grieving for his uncle who was killed 2 years ago. His mother and sister have moved interstate, his father has disappeared... When Tom's flatmates kick him out, he finds himself living with his aunt, Georgie, and working at the pub with his former friends.
The Piper's Son is as much Georgie's story as Tom's. Georgie is dealing with her own grief, and what grief has done to her family - and the complications of being pregnant with her ex-partner's child.

I might have felt emotionally invested in Tom and his friends before I even opened the book, but there were certainly times when I was much more caught up in Georgie's story. I love how The Piper's Son is a young adult novel, and one of the main characters isn't a young adult. It works so well partly because it's is a story about family - a family torn apart by death and grief - and families comprise of people of all ages.
And my goodness, can Marchetta write about family! Her portrayal of a family is very convincing and powerful - both heart-wrenching and heart-warming.
The Piper's Son is also moving as a story about people putting the pieces of their lives back together, and re-becoming friends. (If Saving Francesca is about making friends, The Piper's Son is about keeping the ones you've got.) I love the dialogue, the bantering, the humour - it made me smile, and it made me laugh. I was also entertained by the popular-culture references. Hurray for quoting Pride and Prejudice!

(On a slight side note, I was surprised to find I had a problem with the swearing in this. I am usually not that bothered swearing in books, but I found myself disliking it intensely, and I'm not entirely sure why. However, when everything is said and done, it doesn't change my opinion of The Piper's Son.)

There's a lot in The Piper's Son, and a lot I could possibly say about it. It's not my absolute favourite of Marchetta's, and in my mind, it isn't her best - and I don't think that matters. It's captivating and emotional, a fantastic story, and very satisfying. I couldn't put it down, and when I finished, I wanted to read it again. show less

In an interview at Persnickety Snark, Melina Marchetta said that she wanted to capture, “People holding it together and succeeding some days and failing other days” in this novel. Thank you. No, seriously, thank you for summing up a book that is so hard to capture. That comment made me think of a perfect quote--“You have to laugh at yourself because you’d cry your eyes out if you didn’t.” Sure, it’s from an Indigo Girls song but it’s still totally relevant. (right?) On those days you are failing, a sense of humor goes a long way. The grief that the Mackee/Finch family has been living with for the past year or two seems insurmountable. How can life go on when life as you knew it is over?

For those unfamiliar with the show more story, this book follows up on several characters from Saving Francesca, though this book can stand alone. Thomas Mackee and his close-knit extended family have been grieving the loss of Tom’s uncle Joe, who died in a bombing, for over a year. Tom’s mother and sister moved away, his alcoholic father checked out, his aunt is pregnant but believes that because her grief was the impetus for her ex to return, she shouldn’t celebrate the pregnancy. This might sound like a ton of family drama going on but honestly, every person has their problems. Every family has their issues. What this book really deals with is that belief that we all have that no one could ever understand how we are feeling, especially the suffering we go through when we lose another person who is such a huge slice of our world. It’s hard to go on living when someone who served as a point of reference is no longer there. It feels so singular, like we are going alone. And sometimes it feels like it’s easier to live in oblivion.

But it wasn’t all sad. I truly laughed as much as I wallowed in this one, and often out loud. Tom's family and friends really make his turnaround. No, they make each other's turnarounds. At one point in the story, Francesca and Justine are trying to argue that Tom cried while watching Lord of the Rings. The girls text Siobhan and Tara to ask what movie Tom cried during and Siobhan answers “LOTR,” but Tara answers, “He cried when those two muppets climbed that mountain in New Zealand.” (167) I couldn’t stop laughing at this because I have several jokes with my friends that run along this line. (how people describe movies, actors, etc. but we know exactly what they mean when they say something ridiculous) Sometimes all I want is to call, email or text one of my friends just to get back the other half of a joke—it’s the reassurance of a shared memory. Family are the ultimate example…and we all know that families never forget anything. (Hell, my sister is still pissed about me knocking over her dollhouse OVER TWENTY YEARS AGO. Seriously Casey, get over it.) Anyway, I really loved the family and friendship dynamics in this one. One of my favorite moments was when Tom suggested to Siobhan that Frankie texted all their friends calling him a dickhead. She replies that actually, Frankie texted them, “I think we’re getting our Tom back.” Even when they were beyond angry at him for his actions and she was outwardly being very hostile to him, she loved him. They all loved him. I almost lost it. I was really glad there was so much discussion going on about how it feels to be those people on the outside trying to help. No one knows what to say but they keep trying, and waiting, and trying some more.

I know I really love something when I don’t give a shit what anyone else says about it. You’d think it would be the opposite — teeth-baring rage directed at any naysayers. Sure, I’ll fight to defend it if someone says they didn’t enjoy x or y about it but when it all boils down, it means so much to me that everyone else can just go to hell if they don’t see its value. I’ll be in my own little corner (in my own little chair) poring over my favorite books (including this one) laughing hysterically, giving my heart a workout, inconsolably sobbing, and hoarding my memories like that packrat garbage lady in Labyrinth.

This book gave me a heartache and a stomachache. I thought I would cry, even before I knew where the book was going, even before I cracked the book open. But I didn’t. Not until the very last few pages and it was more like two tears streaming silently down my face. I wish I could know these characters in real life. I’d marry Tom Mackee in a nanosecond. And please, Melina Marchetta, please tell us what’s happened to Jimmy. I teared up when we found out that Jimmy had tried to be there for Tom but Tom didn’t know…not that it would’ve mattered to Tom at that point.

I’m leaving this picture I drew as a placeholder for my review. It’s totally honest. In this book, Melina Marchetta will rip out your heart and serve it back to you on a silver platter: http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/7649/melinaheart.png show less

I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life
-Pink Floyd, "Coming Back To Life"

Marchetta is a writer who understands the beauty in the breakdown. This book would not have been so simultaneously hopeful and heartbreaking to read if she didn't. It's 2007. Two years have passed since Tom's beloved Uncle Joe was killed on his way to work in London. Tom's father has always been a drinker, but he completely falls off the wagon after Joe's death. Tom's mother walks out in an attempt to shield his younger sister from the chaos. Tom refuses to go. Eventually, his father walks out on him, too. Tom escapes quietly into an numbed state of drug and alcohol use to cope. I blame show more him, but it's a sympathetic blaming. Some emotions feel better on snooze.

His Aunt Georgie has other problems. Due to seemingly being the only family member able to hold her crap together (bless the Georgies of the world), she flies up to London to retrieve Joe's body, if possible. Her ex accompanies her. The one who cheated on her five years earlier. And got another woman pregnant. Now, two years later, Georgie is also pregnant with his baby. Honestly, I don't how she did it, because straight up, I would be like, "Please, for the love God, hand me a drink."

Like I said, I can sympathize with Tom.

I am not sure if I can adequately articulate my emotions about this one. I know on the surface it would be so easy to say that the events in The Piper's Son are about a family dealing with grief from a death. It would be incredibly easy to say that. However, the death, to me, seemed more of a reckoning, a gathering on the Finch-Mackee timeline for things unsaid, resentments unacknowledged, and demons unconquered. The death of Tom's Uncle Joe was the keystone of a family's implosion and magnified issues that were already present. Instead of the family coming together, the fine fracture lines cracked apart and separated individuals. Tom was both abandoned and chose to be on his own. Georgie closed in her grief and shame and anger over her baby brother's death and her unplanned pregnancy.

No one I've read can quite balance grief and humor like Marchetta can . . . Our Tom is still the snarky layabout that he was in Saving Francesca, but while you only got a whisper of his pain there, here it is full blown, as are his quips and timing. At times, I hated him, and at others, I kept praying that he would reach out to someone, anyone, because it was evident that he wanted and needed that. Georgie is one of the 'realest' characters I've ever read. She carries guilt the way she carries her child: it hangs low on her and takes up the center of her being. Marchetta really nails the difficult journey of self-love and forgiveness of others through Georgie.

I didn't just smile; I laughed out loud in public (several times, I might add). A couple pages later, I'd tear up. I love this family - I know a bit about how some families need to get a little blood on the floor so everyone can walk away feeling loved and forgiven. It's a cathartic process you only appreciate if you grow up with it. Their humor, their loyalty and their ability to feel deeply had me hoping the entire book that everyone would find their way back to each other.

For those of you wondering if you need to read Saving Francesca to understand this book, no, it's not necessary. The Mackee's story stands on it's own, although Saving Francesca is a book I highly recommend to you, as well (review coming 03.14.11). I am not sure if I am really doing this book justice, but suffice to say, I didn't love it; I breathed it in and lived it. It's the subtle difference between standing outside a story and being a witness in it, and Marchetta's writing is the type that makes you feel like you walking down the street with Tom or talking men with Georgie. In the end, this is the story of how love can rip family apart and bring them back together, of how keeping connections with others alive and hungry nourishes and protects your own life. The Piper's Son is a beautiful story of love and redemption, of going home again, and how some things have to shatter so you can put them right again. show less

Everyone had been going on about what a fabulous book this was and although I am new to reading Marchetta I know that I am a huge fan. The Piper’s Son was an amazing book to start listening to audio with.

Marchetta paints a family that has been devastated by several catastrophes. First Tom Mackee (the older one that our protagonist is named after) is lost at war and leaves behind a wife and two children who are awaiting the news for their whole lives that he was coming home so they can bury him. Secondly the third child born to Mackee’s wife and his best friend dies in the London Tube bombings. There was no body to collect and this is the pivotal point when the Mackee/Finch clan truly breaks apart.

Young Tom begins living in a shared show more apartment, he breaks up with his girlfriend, quits school and starts doing drugs. Uncle Joe was the glue that held the family together.

I have a friend who lives in London a very close friend. He was in the tube that morning, and it was super crowded. His life was saved when he decided to take the next train so that he wouldn’t be squashed and standing all the way to Charing Cross.

The story is performed by Michael Finney who I think gave the heart wrenching words of this story their true soul. I was enraptured and entranced by his reading and I cried and laughed and the Mackee family became so real to me in these hours listening to The Piper’s Son.

You do not have to read Saving Francesca to read The Piper’s Son. It is more of a companion really a completely new story focusing on Tom. I will however go back and read it, it holds some clues to Tom that I may have missed and I am wholly interested in this tiny soapish drama that Marchetta has created. show less