The House We
Grew Up In
by Lisa
Jewell
Easter
Sunday was always a special day for the Bird family. Lorelei, eccentric mother
of four, not only planned extravagant egg hunts but insisted on saving every
foil egg wrapper for future craft projects . . . as well as every single piece
of her children’s art created with the foils . . . and every scrap of material
evidence of what she considered an idyllic and even charmed life. As Lorelei collects mementos, the Bird house soon
becomes a hoarder’s haven; a place of storage for obsessive buying binges,
material evidence of past pleasures and a place to bury family secrets and hurts.
But one
unforgettable Easter, the Birds suffer such a devastating blow that it begins
to unravel the family. The tragedy and their home becomes a tomb that the adult
Bird children must either escape or, if they stay, risk becoming another ‘item’
for Lorelei to hoard. As the years pass, Lorelei becomes a recluse. Colin, her
husband and the children’s father seals himself away in another part of the
house and life in general. The adult Bird
children grow into a life where they wrestle with failed relationships, flawed
selves, and the torments of that Easter tragedy.
Jewell’s novel weaves a reckless path through a
story that is full of both material and emotional clutter. She is a wonderful
storyteller who paints compelling characters who struggle desperately to be a
family and, despite the wayward paths they take, never give up the effort. At first
the story made me feel claustrophobic and a bit hopeless. But, the compelling characters
kept me pushing on and by the end, I felt that I had met a family who had really
overcome their differences and passed hurts and discovered what it is to be
family.
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