The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a really, really weird book. Meredith recommended it to me.
The story is about a woman who is obese. When her husband leaves her right as she's facing a medical emergency, there are ramifications for the entire family. The story jumps around in time, tracking her weight gain from when she is a child, through her career as a successful lawyer, through becoming a mother, and then as a grandmother. The story is told through many different perspectives, including her daughter-in-law, her children, her boyfriend, and even a unique chapter representing a group of couples that she and her husband knew socially for years through the synagogue. Some people try to help her lose weight, others enable her to continue gaining weight, and others just find her disgusting.
I thought the writing was really good in this book - simple and direct, but created moods and characters quickly and eloquently. All the characters were very well-developed, and the setting was too. Glad I read it.
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