Product Description

A retreat on Lake Michigan for old-money WASPs, Sand Isle has long been the summer residence of the Addison family. The youngest member of the clan, Maddie Addison, survived an awkward but sheltered adolescence only to be plagued in adulthood by alcoholism, a failed marriage, and an unendurable loss that sent her fleeing the burden of family expectations. Now, after an eleven-year hiatus, Maddie has been summoned back to Sand Isle, where her widowed mother languishes near death. What awaits Maddie is a collision of distinct, eccentric personalities -- by turns hilarious and poignant -- as well as an archive of memories that evoke pleasure, passion, and pain. Beneath the silent gaze of her ailing mother, Maddie and her family must confront their past and face the future to once again find a home in a house steeped in untold stories of its own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1341107 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-31
• Released on: 2005-05-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Gamble's evocative second novel chronicles a prodigal daughter's fraught homecoming and re-immersion in a family history both harsh and cradling. After an 11-year absence, 40-something filmmaker Maddie Addison leaves New York and returns to her patrician family's summer place on the shores of Lake Michigan to join an odd mix of family and friends at the bedside of her dying mother. There, as she battles with the ghosts of past mistakes, she discovers family secrets and confronts her personal tragedies. She faces her sister, Dana; an old boyfriend; and a cast of eccentric cousins as they all come together for the first time in more than a decade. As her former boozehound mother's health deteriorates, Maddie recollects the decades past that account for the woman she has become, recounting her confused love for various cousins, her failed marriage, the death of her infant and her own struggles with alcohol. Hidden letters, secret loves and desperate acts all come to light as Maddie strives for peace with her relatives and within herself. Though she occasionally strains for lyricism, Gamble (The Water Dancers) paints a poignant tale that is at once tragic and hopeful.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In the waning days of her mother's life, Maddie Addison reluctantly returns to the family vacation home on Michigan's Sand Isle, an idyllic retreat where generations of prominent industrialists have traditionally summered in grand style, replete with servants, sailboats, and secrets. Though this was once a welcome haven, Maddie has been in self-imposed exile for more than a decade, ever since the tragic summer when her infant daughter, Sadie, died, an event that plunged Maddie into the depths of alcoholic despair. Now faced with the family she alienated and abandoned--a raucous and slightly dissipated group of siblings, cousins, and assorted offspring--Maddie is forced to confront the rueful memories that haunt her, the vexing choices she has made, and the poignant consequences of living a life apart. Rich in elegant reflections and piquant observations, Gamble's sublime account of a family in disarray and a woman displaced is sheer perfection; she masterfully gives shape and nuance to the intricacies of those relationships that are meant to provide comfort, but that very often mask underlying sorrow. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Gamble has done a graceful job of providing insight, as well as intrigue. Grade: B+" -- Rocky Mountain News

Customer Reviews

A Beautiful Book
Thank you, Terry Gamble, for this wonderful book. The first sentence blows you away and then it keeps getting better. This is a great summer read, or if you want to feel summer, because she totally captures that rather aimless, warm, sandy, good-eating, kind of sun-burned feeling of gathering with your family by the lake. But it's so much more. The characters--the mother dying in an upstairs room while below her life teems, Maddie's rather eccentric cousins and their families, Ian, the gay Lutheran addict from Minnesota! Loved Ian! The house itself is a character with its ancestor ghosts. I loved Maddie and her journey and Gamble writes so evocatively, that it's hard to put the book down. Her descriptions of Maddie`s new baby, and the love she feels for her, are some of the best I've ever read. A beautiful, beautiful book.

Couldn't Put It Down
This was my most favorite novel that I read all year. I still miss the characters, especially Maddie and Ian, and marvel at this author's ability to capture such a wonderful sense of place. I wish they'd make a movie of it!

Inherited Money
I gave Good Family two stars because it is well written enough that there is no problem finishing it. It does not make you laugh or cry nor will I remember the characters a month from now. The summer cottage is a very large house on an island. Watching Michigan sunsets and playing in the water is very lovely, but does not seem to make happy people. All of the characters are in some way flawed. It appears that having inherited sufficient money to not have to work for a living may result in identity issues. Yes, they have had problems and losses. If you live long enough who hasn't? The family is concerned that one cousin may not come for the death watch, because there is no cook on the premises. In the distant past the family arrived with an entourage: of cook, nurse, maids etc.. Times have changed and they have to prepare their own meals. This book brings to mind news stories of today's children of famous old families who contribute little to society and come to bad ends. If these folks had to show up at work 350 days a year they might be better people. As power does so does money corrupt.