we are not ourselves

We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas (Simon and Schuster, 2014)

We Are Not Ourselves is the story of Eileen Leary, a second-generation Irish-American.  Both  her parents are alcoholics,and she grows up fast and smart in Queens in the 40s and 50s when she is forced to parent both her mother and father as well as herself.  She marries Edmund, a sweet unambitious academic who teaches and does (chemical) research at a public university in the Bronx.  (To Eileen’s chagrin, he turns down a job at NYU because he feels he is more needed in the Bronx.)  Eileen and Ed have a son, Connor, and move into and eventually buy a 3-family home in Jackson Heights.  Ed begins acting strangely and is finally diagnosed with having early onset Alzheimer’s, from which he dies several excrutitating years later.

This book is sincere and old-fashioned and Thomas is good at capturing the routines of daily life and the relationships between parents and children, and spouses.  The book is carefully — almost painstakingly — written and is vivid and engaging in its sensitive depiction of domestic life.  Yet it failed to make much of an impact on me, perhaps because Eileen is not a particularly compelling or sympathetic character, and the book never rises above her somewhat pedestrian level.  Its lack of effect might also be a result of its span and length: 50 years, 600 pages.  Neither the story nor the characters can sustain that much time and that many pages.