I think there is a camp that believes that this book doesn’t have enough action. I’d join that camp.

The merits of this book are largely in the characters and the relationships between them. There is some thought given to geography and place, but otherwise, the language strikes me as straightforward and plain, not clever or symbolically weighty. And given that, I found this book a bit of a disappointment - because while the characters are fairly interesting, there are some fairly significant leaps of faith in their development. Principally - Helen’s rather vehement reaction to her mother’s both-distant-and-overbearing parenting style. While a mother like that doesn’t sound like a walk in the park, it’s difficult to believe that the anger around that kind of upbringing would year a ten-year estrangement. By way of comparison, I enjoyed Brooklyn quite a bit more.

All that said, there were some points of interest for me. For example, the rather unusual ending; the fact that although the center of this book is a gay man dying of AIDS, the main characters are all women; the character of the grandmother, who is pretty enjoyable; and some priceless scenes, especially that of the same-sex marriage and that of Helen finding her mother’s offices.

Having seen August: Osage County recently, I’d add that this book really should have been written as a play. I think that would have made it much more compelling.