Did You Ever Have a Family: A Novel

Too give some background. A couple of favorite authors of mine are Irving and Conroy in fiction. I really liked this book. This story is a bit dark. Plenty of sadness to go around. About decisions and their consequences. About the Rube-Goldberg effect of various decisions and the confluence of lives. To me Clegg' writing is sparse and the story unravels as the pages fly by. A different kind of story. One that makes you think. One that you should read.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough!Clegg is a very gifted writer in so many ways. His method of character development is really stellar, his use of language is top rate. Most importantly, he manages to weave a lot of life's harsher or challenging realities into a wonderful novel that is somehow NOT horribly depressing!In fact, despite the "heavy" stuff, I found this book achingly beautiful in so many ways.Obviously, this book tackles profound grief, but it is so skillfully crafted that there are MANY other stories to be told within, issues to be examined.The chapters are each focused on/ narrated by one of the characters, which makes for not only an engaging format but also illustrates various (and often VASTLY differing ) points of view, beliefs, personalities, generational influences, prejudices, and the danger/ harm that's so often the result of assumptions based on rumor, gossip, or appearances.I can honestly say that I think that there's something of value for everyone in this novel, regardless of who you are. Please read it!

Wow!! This is a beautiful and meandering tale of grief, blame, guilt and the lives changed forever by a terrible accident on the eve of a wedding in a small town. The story unfolds through the eyes and heartbreak of various characters, and at various times in the chronology, starting with the morning of the disaster, but jumping to the time before and after. June's daughter Lolly, her finace Will, her ex-husband and her boyfriend Luke are all staying at her home on the eve of Lolly's wedding, when the house explodes killing everyone inside and June is left, having been out of the house at the time, with everyone in her life gone. After the funerals she disappears and the only person with a family member who is still in town is Lydia, the town outcast, as she tries to process her grief alone. These two tell the majority of the tale though we meet others, along the journey, damaged by life, who bring their perspective and bring the story together. It's a skillfully and gently woven tale that nevertheless will smack you in the face with the power and grief of loss. Once picked up and committed to, you won't want to put it down and you'll be thinking of these characters for days afterwards. I read a few pages at a time but found it hard to follow in this manner, so about four short chapters in, I just started reading and didn't stop until I finished.

I just do not get the people who gave this book bad reviews. This was such a good book. It reminds me of the movie Crash how everyone's lives connect together. I had this on my wish list for awhile. But there where some bad reviews so I hesitated to purchase it. Amazon had it on sale the other day, so I took my chance and glad I did.This is the best book I have read so far this year. Grant you it is a sad story and the ending isn't happy rainbows but how could it be, if you lost everything in your life. The writing is very good and it only takes a lazy Sunday afternoon to complete. Some people complained that there was no dialog. Oh please, really. . . The author is telling a story and you do not have to be a brain surgeon to follow the different characters. Frankly, there are not too many characters to keep straight as some have stated. This book is worth reading.

From the start, it's obvious that author Bill Clegg absorbed every important lessons about great novels during his career as a literary agent. This is a stunning story. Clegg introduces us to odd, irritating, even depressing characters, yet they eventually resonate as all too human and worthy of our admiration. Although the main plot revolves around a devastating tragedy and the shattered lives left in its wake, Clegg manages to infuse the book with just enough hope to leave readers feeling more than a glimmer of promise. His examination of the human condition is pitch perfect. Readers will remember the characters long after the story has ended.

Recently I've started four books, all different genres. For some reason I've been struggling to get past the first few chapters of each one...until this one. I started this book and was immediately hooked. It is beautifully written, coloring each character so precisely that you feel almost like a voyeur knowing more than you rightfully should. There were lines that touched me so deeply I was compelled to underline them, not a common habit of mine when reading fiction. If you love good stories and well developed characters, some deep and touching emotions and a bit of universal truths thrown in, give this book a read. I haven't read any if its reviews but intend to do so now to see if others were as touched by it as I was.

this exceptionally powerful (first?) novel -- long-listed for this year's man booker prize -- grabs you from page one with a scene of devastating destruction for a family...the rest of the book is told from the shifting / conflicting POV's of the survivors...a kind of American "rashomon" in the wake of tragic loss...the attempts to deny...to cope....to move on....the intense physical and emotional fallout.the writing is alternately biting and poignant...always tight, never overdone, often beautiful...(a real gift here for the just-right metaphor)...the observations are sharp and telling...the revelations both surprising and "true." the dialogue is mostly plain-spoken but with unstuffy eloquence all its own...each character is both strong and in some kind of denial on the various roads to "moving on."..."getting over it, getting past it"...coming to terms with it...a writer to savor now and keep an eye on,,,i'll read whatever this guy does next.

This book has been on my radar for a while, it has been lurking on my Kindle and as I am trying to get through the backlog of unread books I have (trying being the operative word) I decided it was high time that I finally read Did You Ever Have a Family and I am so pleased that I did.The synopsis makes the book sound like its maudlin and macbre and, despite it dealing with grief, loss and despair it is so beautifully written that it doesn’t feel ghoulish in the slightest.Written from multiple points of view the events of the days and hours preceding the fire are filled in. We also learn about the history of the people killed in the fire and those affected both directly and indirectly. There’s the couple who arranged the catering for the wedding and whose bill hasn’t been paid, there’s Luke’s mother who is a social pariah, there’s the owners of the motel which June escapes to and there’s June herself who loses her whole family in one night. I loved reading about the different characters, each one has a distinctive voice and story to tell. Some characters only have a chapter or two written about them but they are so well written and so well drawn that I was totally invested in them. The sudden death of a character we never directly meet made me gasp such was the impact of it.This is a book about love, loss, heartache, life, joy, small town mentality and really provided me with food for thought. It is beautifully written and the different strands from the wide and varied range of characters was extremely well done and didn’t feel contrived at all. It is bittersweet and completely exceptional. I have a feeling i’ll be thinking about this book for some time.

Honestly, I did read to the end and I have read worse books . But ....... honestly! Not one remotely pleasant thing appears to happen in life of the many many characters we are introduced to. It’s not just the obvious tragedy of the house fire and the ripples from it but the unremitting misery of the lives of the people before , during and after. Makes me grateful for my very normal , average , ups and down but survivable life. Only read if you want to feel blue

I've read hundreds of books over the years and can't believe I've only just come across Bill Clegg. This is a superb piece of writing, a really well plotted story that starts with a family tragedy and then jumps backwards and forwards in time, explaining what happened and why. Some great well drawn characters and a really evocative picture of small town life, shown through a chorus of voices - people who were deeply involved in the tragedy, others who only witnessed it from afar but still have opinions about the family and its history. All drawn together so adeptly at the end. Can't recommend this enough!

Everyone by now must know the premise of this novel by New York literary agent Bill Clegg. A vacation home explodes, a family is wiped out. This is the story of those who remain, of grief, of memories and regret, of resentments and prejudice.The UK publication date was brought forward to August 25, when the title was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.Between the lines of every page is the question ‘why did the explosion happen?’ Was it a tragic accident, a faulty gas stove, was there an argument, or was it more sinister. Do the answers lie in the past? This is not a thriller, it is a careful study of the nature of grief, things said and not said, conclusions drawn, right and wrong. June is the survivor. After the funerals, she runs. Is she running from her grief, or running to a place where she can face up to that grief? Through her viewpoint, and that of others directly and indirectly affected, we begin to piece together what happened, before and after. We see the damage caused by small town gossip and childhood enmities, we see the chasms opened up between parents and children which neither seem able to close.This is a very affecting novel, it feels almost voyeuristic, invading the privacy of those who are grieving. It is clear that Bill Clegg writes from the heart, from his own experience, not only of grief but of the Connecticut landscape, the setting, and the secondary theme of drug use. This novel is a study of how ordinary life can be torn apart by tragedy, so mind-blowing that the irrelevance of real life must stop. But daily life doesn’t stop, not really, day follows night, as June discovers as she drives from east to west coast.This is one of those books I will buy as hardback. I want to keep it, and re-read it often.

I so looked forward to reading this as I had read such positive reviews. The format the the novel is written in does not lend itself well to kindle reading as every chapter is about a new character. As there are so many characters, you find yourself having to go back to early chapters to figure out who they are. In the end I gave up on this practice as the kindle makes this impractical the further into the story you are. The story itself was very moving and the characters were well drawn. I just found the constant jumping to different stories and perspectives very distracting and made for a disjointed story for me and I believe detracted from what was in fact a very well written piece of fiction.