Review: ‘Bug Hollow' a tale of family dysfunction in 1970s California
In Michelle Huneven's latest novel, the house's hippie counterculture vibe (and Julia, one of those peasant-bloused girls) are so irresistible to straight A-achieving, baseball-loving Ellis that he moves in, only letting his parents know where he is through the occasional postcard (it's the 1970s, so no cellphones).
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Bug Hollow
By Michelle Huneven
(Penguin Press; 288 pages; $29)
A few pages in, Ellis' departure is less of a mystery. He just needed to get away. Life at home in Altadena (where Huneven lives — she recently lost her home in the Eaton Fire), is far less bucolic, largely due to Ellis' distant and often cruel mother, Sibyl (known as Sib).
Sib is a bad mother. I mean, in the pantheon of bad literary mothers, many are far worse, but she's pretty unforgivable. Stingy with her affection, profligate with her critique, and far too cozy with her tumbler of Hawaiian punch and vodka, her three children mostly just try to stay out of her way. Her husband Phil, much kinder than her — and maybe even unrealistically chipper — provides emotional stability that she can't, but also ignores her obvious alcoholism. Sib is also, incongruously, a devoted middle grade teacher and admits, to herself anyway, that it's far more satisfying to take an active interest in the well-being of her students than in her own kids.
When her son Ellis, the one kid she actually had made time for, dies in a freak swimming accident just before leaving for college, it's a little hard to believe that Sib hesitates not a moment to offer to adopt Julia's unborn child. Fittingly, the first thing she asks Julia is 'It is Ellis', you're sure?' The second thing: 'You haven't done any drugs, have you?'
Julia, not eager to be a mother, agrees to give her child to this flawed one. The adoption results in a confusing family structure: The child, named Eva, is adopted by her grandparents (Sib and Phil) so their other children (two girls, Katie and Sally) are now her sisters but also her aunts. Family relations just get more complicated later on.
The impact of Ellis' death and Sib's increasingly erratic (and drunken) behavior on the family is the focus of 'Bug Hollow.' It's a book about relationships that dissolve and form over decades out of necessity, compatibility or desire. Lost loves are reunited. Siblings, free from the parental home, form stronger familial bonds. Surprising results from a 23andMe test play a part.
Huneven told the Los Angeles Times that this book, her sixth, didn't come easy: 'I initially wanted to write short stories but I didn't have any ideas.' That tracks: The book, built from a series of writing prompts, can feel a little too glued together, a little too pat. It feels arbitrary, for example, to all of a sudden be in the Aramco compound in Saudi Arabia. And then in Oaxaca. There is no big idea here apart from how families fracture and repair themselves; the Samuelsons are a family that has experienced tragedy and heartbreak as all families do in some measure.
Huneven's writing can feel awkward, more clunky than literary: 'Sib slips into the house, pees, fixes a Hawaiian punch, and leashes Hinky. Dog and drink in hand, she heads out for a walk.' 'Bug Hollow' is not a book full of beautiful sentences but it is a compelling family story with the feel of a television drama. An actress could really eat the scenery if given the part of Sib.
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