March 25, 2024
Hallberg’s meandering latest (after City on Fire) traces the tentative reunion between an estranged father and his teenage daughter. It’s 2011 and Ethan Aspern, a recovering heroin addict who’s been in and out of prison for a series of small-time drug busts, has endured a lifetime of depression. His 13-year-old daughter, Jolie, lives with her mother, Sarah, in Upper Manhattan. When Ethan learns Jolie was nearly hit by a subway train after trying to recover her dropped phone from the tracks, he senses she’s having problems of her own and vows to help set her straight. Long flashbacks elaborate on Ethan’s uneven history with Sarah, his descent into addiction, and his winding path toward recovery, hobbled in part by an ingrained sense that he’s not worth saving (“Talk of changed lives had the same effect on Ethan as the shibboleths of AA... which was a kind of gag reflex of solitude, like he was the last person on earth shut out of these simple doctrines of subjection and oneness and love”). A climactic Thanksgiving scene poses the question: might a repentant father and his rebellious daughter save each other? The novel is awash with gritty details and gutting emotional insights, but there’s an overabundance of purple prose and the drawn-out payoff is only semirewarding. This doesn’t quite scale the heights of Hallberg’s breakout. Agent: Chris Parris-Lamb, Gernert Co.
