All Happy Families: A Memoir

by Jeanne McCulloch Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Overview

The Glass Castle meets The Nest in this stunning debut, an intimate family memoir that gracefully brings us behind the dappled beachfront vista of privilege, to reveal the inner lives of two wonderfully colorful, unforgettable families.

On a mid-August weekend, two families assemble for a wedding at a rambling family mansion on the beach in East Hampton, in the last days of the area's quietly refined country splendor, before traffic jams and high-end boutiques morphed the peaceful enclave into the ""Hamptons."" The weather is perfect, the tent is in place on the lawn.

But as the festivities are readied, the father of the bride, and ""pater familias"" of the beachfront manse, suffers a massive stroke from alcohol withdrawal, and lies in a coma in the hospital in the next town. So begins Jeanne McCulloch's vivid memoir of her wedding weekend in 1983 and its after effects on her family, and the family of the groom. In a society defined by appearance and protocol, the wedding goes on at the insistence of McCulloch's theatrical mother. Instead of a planned honeymoon, wedding presents are stashed in the attic, arrangements are made for a funeral, and a team of lawyers arrive armed with papers for McCulloch and her siblings to sign.

As McCulloch reveals, the repercussions from that weekend will ripple throughout her own family, and that of her in-law's lives as they grapple with questions of loyalty, tradition, marital honor, hope, and loss. Five years later, her own brief marriage ended, she returns to East Hampton with her mother to divide the wedding presents that were never opened.

Impressionistic and lyrical, at turns both witty and poignant, All Happy Families is McCulloch's clear-eyed account of her struggle to hear her own voice amid the noise of social mores and family dysfunction, in a world where all that glitters on the surface is not gold, and each unhappy family is ultimately unhappy in its own unique way.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

Although the author’s wedding frames the events of this memoir, it is her mother—imperious, manipulative, intelligent, and protective—who is the focus of this memoir, thanks in part to Gabra Zackman’s evocative narration. Just days before the wedding, McCulloch’s alcoholic father suffered a stroke and went into a coma that he never emerged from. McCulloch uses the occasion of the wedding to explore both her parents’ marriage and her in-laws,’ painting an incisive portrait of two very different families and lifestyles. Zackman uses distinct voices for each of the many characters. The male voices sometimes sound forced, but the women, especially McCulloch’s affected mother and her steady, loving mother-in-law, sound natural, vivid, and memorable. E.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

06/25/2018
In this intimate debut memoir, McCulloch, a former managing editor of the Paris Review, reflects upon her August 1983 Long Island wedding, an occasion marked by her father’s massive stroke two days before, and his death the day after. Rather than focus on her own marriage, which dissolved five years later, McCulloch examines the marriages of her parents and in-laws. McCulloch describes her privileged life growing up in the late 1960s and early ’70s in Manhattan and East Hampton; her father was a former intelligence officer and her mother prided herself on her social standing and her Lilly Pulitzer outfits. Although her father was “sweet and loving,” he was also an alcoholic, and his drinking put a strain on the family. Nevertheless, her parents enjoyed travel and social engagements, and both were elegant dancers; in fact, McCulloch writes that their “surety and synchronicity” of step exemplified what a perfect marriage should be. Her in-laws appeared devoted and content, yet her father-in-law fell in love with another woman several years after McCulloch’s wedding. Some interesting characters stand out—notably McCulloch’s strong and opinionated mother, who insisted that the wedding must go forward; her fun-loving mother-in-law; and the groom’s grandmother, who kept pictures of prewedding table settings because, though a marriage may not last, a photo of a table setting lasts forever. It’s a bittersweet story and a wonderful look at upper-class New York City life. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

All Happy Families is a wry and poignant account of a doomed wedding, a house ‘on a perilous dune’ in the Hamptons, and a world of privilege at its vanishing point. Jeanne McCulloch’s take on the American aristocracy is informed by her sharp eye for any sign of pretentiousness and her uncanny ability to render the despair at the heart of every happy family. Think of her as an Edith Wharton for the twenty-first century: we need her wisdom now more than ever.” — Christopher Merrill, author of Self-Portrait with Dogwood

“An eminently enjoyable take on the infinite tangles and triumphs of family.” — Booklist

“McCulloch is as wise as she is funny, keen both to the ridiculous excesses of the moneyed class and to the evanescence of commercial beauty, while attentive to the intricate pains of alcoholism and love’s failures that afflict her characters, amidst the splendor.” — Mona Simpson, author of Casebook and My Hollywood

“...an honest and sensitive portrayal of family dysfunction as well as an evocation of a dying world of old-money wealth and privilege. A poignantly intimate memoir.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Partly a breezy scene piece, partly a meditation on the familial forces that make us who we are, All Happy Families is a distinct and evocative work.” — Vogue

Mona Simpson

McCulloch is as wise as she is funny, keen both to the ridiculous excesses of the moneyed class and to the evanescence of commercial beauty, while attentive to the intricate pains of alcoholism and love’s failures that afflict her characters, amidst the splendor.

Christopher Merrill

All Happy Families is a wry and poignant account of a doomed wedding, a house ‘on a perilous dune’ in the Hamptons, and a world of privilege at its vanishing point. Jeanne McCulloch’s take on the American aristocracy is informed by her sharp eye for any sign of pretentiousness and her uncanny ability to render the despair at the heart of every happy family. Think of her as an Edith Wharton for the twenty-first century: we need her wisdom now more than ever.

Vogue

Partly a breezy scene piece, partly a meditation on the familial forces that make us who we are, All Happy Families is a distinct and evocative work.

Booklist

An eminently enjoyable take on the infinite tangles and triumphs of family.

Booklist

An eminently enjoyable take on the infinite tangles and triumphs of family.

SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

Although the author’s wedding frames the events of this memoir, it is her mother—imperious, manipulative, intelligent, and protective—who is the focus of this memoir, thanks in part to Gabra Zackman’s evocative narration. Just days before the wedding, McCulloch’s alcoholic father suffered a stroke and went into a coma that he never emerged from. McCulloch uses the occasion of the wedding to explore both her parents’ marriage and her in-laws,’ painting an incisive portrait of two very different families and lifestyles. Zackman uses distinct voices for each of the many characters. The male voices sometimes sound forced, but the women, especially McCulloch’s affected mother and her steady, loving mother-in-law, sound natural, vivid, and memorable. E.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-05-01
A distinguished editor and writer's tale of the people and events surrounding her first wedding.When McCulloch, a former managing editor of the Paris Review and editorial director of Tin House Books, married for the first time, the ceremony took place at her parents' beachfront home in the East Hamptons. The house, writes the author, "had a shabby grandeur to it that time forgot." This run-down elegance also characterized the Hamptons, which in 1983 was "known mainly for artists and potato fields and the fishermen who made their living trawling off Montauk Point." A few days before the wedding, McCulloch's father suffered a massive stroke, transforming a celebration into a crisis that revealed the cracked foundations undergirding the family. Not long before the ceremony, her affected and controlling mother, Patricia, had forced her lifelong alcoholic father, John, to stop drinking. Cessation sent John's body into withdrawal shock and caused his stroke. Yet despite the many problems they had with each other, both lived their lives as though their marriage and family were as happy as they were perfect. The author's own choice of husband disappointed Patricia, who had expected McCulloch to marry a "Social Register" man rather than Dean, "the boy next door." Shortly after the wedding and before McCulloch and her husband could even open wedding presents, John died. At first, Dean's wholesomely all-American family seemed to offer a haven to the author. But three years after the wedding, Dean's father told the family at a Christmastime gathering that he had fallen in love with another woman and eventually left to go live with her. Meanwhile, the author and her husband grew increasingly apart. By the fifth year of their marriage, "all we had in common was the desire not to hurt one another's feelings." McCulloch provides an honest and sensitive portrayal of family dysfunction as well as an evocation of a dying world of old-money wealth and privilege.A poignantly intimate memoir.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173423979
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/14/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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