Synopses & Reviews
Meet the Laments—the affably dysfunctional globetrotting family at the center of George Hagens exuberant debut novel.
Howard is an engineer who dreams of irrigating the Sahara and lives by the motto “Laments move!” His wife Julia is a fiery spirit who must balance her husbands oddly peripatetic nature with unexpected aspirations of her own. And Will is the “waif with a paper-thin heart” who is given to Howard and Julia in return for their own child who has been lost in a bizarre maternity ward mishap. As Will makes his way from infancy to manhood in a family that careens from continent to continent, one wonders where the Laments will ever belong.
In Bahrain, Howard takes a job with an oil company and young Will makes his first friend. But in short order he is wrenched off to another land, his mothers complicated friendship with the American siren Trixie Howitzer causing the family to bolt. In Northern Rhodesia, during its last days as a white colony, the twin enfants terribles Marcus and Julius are born, and Will falls for the gardeners daughter, a girl so vain that she admires her image in the lid of a biscuit tin. But soon the familys life is upturned again, thie time by their neighbor Major Buck Quinn, with his suburban tirades against black self-rule. Envisioning a more civilized life on “the sceptered isle,” the Laments board an ocean liner bound for England. Alas, poor Will is greeted by the tribal ferocity of his schoolmates and a society fixated on the Blitz. No sooner has he succumbed to British pop culture in the guise of mop-top Sally Byrd and her stacks of 45s, than the Laments uproot themselves once again, and its off to New Jersey, where life deals crisis and opportunity in equal measure.
Undeniably eccentric, the Laments are also universal. Every family moves on in life. Children grow up, things are left behind; there is always something to lament. Through the Laments restlessness, responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen gives us a portrait of every family that is funny, tragic, and improbably true.
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
"There is an admirable and enviable range and ambition in The Laments, and something lucidly democratic in the novel's insistence that a wandering life grants perspectives and perceptions that stay-at-homes can't achieve." New York Times
Review
"[T]he writing in The Laments is sprightly and Hagen's observations often tart, and the book has the playfulness of a prank pulled by its twins, Julius and Marcus." Chicago Tribune
Review
"The Laments is a fine novel, about family, migration, identity, and the struggle to find and hold on to it. It is also hugely entertaining and very, very funny." Roddy Doyle, author of The Barrytown Trilogy
Synopsis
Meet the Laments the affably dysfunctional globetrotting family at the center of George Hagen's exuberant debut novel.
Howard is an engineer who dreams of irrigating the Sahara and lives by the motto "Laments move!" His wife Julia is a fiery spirit who must balance her husband's oddly peripatetic nature with unexpected aspirations of her own. And Will is the "waif with a paper-thin heart" who is given to Howard and Julia in return for their own child who has been lost in a bizarre maternity ward mishap. As Will makes his way from infancy to manhood in a family that careens from continent to continent, one wonders where the Laments will ever belong.
In Bahrain, Howard takes a job with an oil company and young Will makes his first friend. But in short order he is wrenched off to another land, his mother's complicated friendship with the American siren Trixie Howitzer causing the family to bolt. In Northern Rhodesia, during its last days as a white colony, the twin enfants terribles Marcus and Julius are born, and Will falls for the gardener's daughter, a girl so vain that she admires her image in the lid of a biscuit tin. But soon the family's life is upturned again, thie time by their neighbor Major Buck Quinn, with his suburban tirades against black self-rule. Envisioning a more civilized life on "the sceptered isle," the Laments board an ocean liner bound for England. Alas, poor Will is greeted by the tribal ferocity of his schoolmates and a society fixated on the Blitz. No sooner has he succumbed to British pop culture in the guise of mop-top Sally Byrd and her stacks of 45s, than the Laments uproot themselves once again, and it's off to New Jersey, where life deals crisisand opportunity in equal measure.
Undeniably eccentric, the Laments are also universal. Every family moves on in life. Children grow up, things are left behind; there is always something to lament. Through the Lament's restlessness, responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen gives us a portrait of every family that is funny, tragic, and improbably true.
About the Author
GEORGE HAGEN had lived on three continents by the time he was twelve.
The Laments is his first novel. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
1. “No one could doubt that this baby, in spite of his lack of a name, was destined for a happy life.” How does the Lament familys vision of happiness change as they wander from country to country?
2. Will has an intense investment in the unity of his parents as a baby, linking his mothers dress and his fathers belt loop with his finger. How does this investment play itself out to the novels end? What is the significance of his comment to Rose at the Statue of Liberty when he says, “I cant do it forever?”
3. What is the significance of roses in the novel? For instance, when the Midnight Chinaman first appears, he has roses embroidered on his silk pajamas. What does his presence portend?
4. What causes Howards depression? Is his ambition at fault? Is Julia responsible? Or is his wanderlust the problem?
5. Will reaches out to many girls in the novel. Are Ruth, Sally, Marina and Dawn more like sisters than crushes? What about Minna?
6. What is the significance, if any, of Howards attempt to design an artificial heart?
7. On their ocean trip to England, Howard worries that Will needs to be tougher to adapt to England. Does Howard also need to be tougher in order to adapt?
8. Julia finds the moves from country to country more and more difficult. How do her rationalizations for moving change? Do they reflect a fundamental shift in the terms of her marriage with Howard?
9. Will is seduced by British pop culture as he witnesses it in Sallys bedroom, with pop stars plastered all over the walls and door. Who in the Lament family is seduced by American culture, and how?
10. Britain is depicted as a nation that cannot ‘get over its role in World War II. Are the Americans that the Laments encounter reconciled with their past?
11. Trixie Howitzers marriage to Chip is rather a cynical arrangement, yet Julia is fascinated by Trixie while Howard is repelled. Why is this? What, if anything, does Julia have in common with Trixie?
12. When the Laments arrive in America, they are directed by several characters to make friends with the Himmels, who are German immigrants. How does the Himmel familys integration into American culture compare to the Laments?
13. Roy Biddle remarks to Will that “everyone is a racist.” How is racism depicted in the different cultures the Laments encounter? Is Will a racist? Why, or why not? Is that important to the novel?
14. The Laments place tremendous faith in what the future will bring. But Hagen describes a number of characters who revere the past: Mrs. Pritchard, for example, and Dr. Underberg, who prefers the “thousands of years of experience” that Africans have in producing happy babies to modern child rearing. How is the past pitted against the future in this novel?
15. What might have happened if the Laments natural born son had lived? Would they have traveled? What of Howards ambition and Julias frustration with her domesticity? Would they have been destined for a happy life?
16. Would you consider the Laments to be driven to travel by their political principles? Why do they leave Africa? Is there a contrast between the America they anticipate, and the one they find as revealed by the attitudes of their American neighbors?
1. “No one could doubt that this baby, in spite of his lack of a name, was destined for a happy life.” How does the Lament familys vision of happiness change as they wander from country to country?
2. Will has an intense investment in the unity of his parents as a baby, linking his mothers dress and his fathers belt loop with his finger. How does this investment play itself out to the novels end? What is the significance of his comment to Rose at the Statue of Liberty when he says, “I cant do it forever?”
3. What is the significance of roses in the novel? For instance, when the Midnight Chinaman first appears, he has roses embroidered on his silk pajamas. What does his presence portend?
4. What causes Howards depression? Is his ambition at fault? Is Julia responsible? Or is his wanderlust the problem?
5. Will reaches out to many girls in the novel. Are Ruth, Sally, Marina and Dawn more like sisters than crushes? What about Minna?
6. What is the significance, if any, of Howards attempt to design an artificial heart?
7. On their ocean trip to England, Howard worries that Will needs to be tougher to adapt to England. Does Howard also need to be tougher in order to adapt?
8. Julia finds the moves from country to country more and more difficult. How do her rationalizations for moving change? Do they reflect a fundamental shift in the terms of her marriage with Howard?
9. Will is seduced by British pop culture as he witnesses it in Sallys bedroom, with pop stars plastered all over the walls and door. Who in the Lament family is seduced by American culture, and how?
10. Britain is depicted as a nation that cannot ‘get over its role in World War II. Are the Americans that the Laments encounter reconciled with their past?
11. Trixie Howitzers marriage to Chip is rather a cynical arrangement, yet Julia is fascinated by Trixie while Howard is repelled. Why is this? What, if anything, does Julia have in common with Trixie?
12. When the Laments arrive in America, they are directed by several characters to make friends with the Himmels, who are German immigrants. How does the Himmel familys integration into American culture compare to the Laments?
13. Roy Biddle remarks to Will that “everyone is a racist.” How is racism depicted in the different cultures the Laments encounter? Is Will a racist? Why, or why not? Is that important to the novel?
14. The Laments place tremendous faith in what the future will bring. But Hagen describes a number of characters who revere the past: Mrs. Pritchard, for example, and Dr. Underberg, who prefers the “thousands of years of experience” that Africans have in producing happy babies to modern child rearing. How is the past pitted against the future in this novel?
15. What might have happened if the Laments natural born son had lived? Would they have traveled? What of Howards ambition and Julias frustration with her domesticity? Would they have been destined for a happy life?
16. Would you consider the Laments to be driven to travel by their political principles? Why do they leave Africa? Is there a contrast between the America they anticipate, and the one they find as revealed by the attitudes of their American neighbors?