Article contributed by Laura Glassman
Always the Last to Know is the story of a family dealing with difficult circumstances and learning more about each other in the process. It is told from the viewpoint of each of four characters: John, the father, Barb, the mother, Sadie, John’s favourite daughter, and Juliet, Barb’s favourite daughter. At the start, Sadie has just embarrassingly proposed to and been rejected by her boyfriend of two years. She gets a call from her sister to tell her that her dad is in the hospital after experiencing a stroke. Meanwhile, her mother, Barb, is all ready to file for divorce from John when she receives news about what has happened. As she sits in the hospital waiting area, she picks up his buzzing phone and learns a secret about him. When she hears the news of her father’s stroke, Juliet is in the midst of contemplating a career switch to being a smoke jumper, of all things, thinking that she might escape her overly busy and programmed life to start afresh with something entirely new. The news changes all of these characters lives and brings them together as they struggle to adapt to their new reality, care for their father, and figure out each of their own lives, together and separately.
Kristan Higgins shows great insight into people’s lives and emotions through the way she paints a picture of each of her characters. There is context to everything in this book so that we truly understand why things are happening as they are. That context is gradually revealed so that readers will be kept turning pages wondering why things evolved as they did. For example, Barb and John’s marriage is described from the beginning, including the times when it felt perfect and happy. We also get context for why the parents have the relationships that they do with each of the daughters.
Barb must deal with a number of difficult and complicated emotions as a result of John’s stroke and the affair that she learns he was having. It is clear that she was a hard-working mother who gave her all to her children. As a result, she experienced great frustration due to what she perceives as John’s lackadaisical attitude and lack of effort in certain areas of parenting. Wanting to end the relationship and learning that something terrible has happened to her husband is an unimaginably difficult circumstance; learning that he has been cheating and she must respond to that amidst all of what is going on is even more difficult. Higgins paints a picture of Barb as a complex woman with both feelings readers are likely to feel sympathetic for and less appealing qualities as well.
Sadie’s special relationship with her father is tender and will be easy to relate to for those readers with close father-daughter relationships. She must return to her hometown (which she doesn’t love) since she has volunteered to be the main caregiver for her father following his stroke. Upon returning to her hometown, she encounters an ex-boyfriend from years ago, and he comes back into her life in a surprising way. The story of how her relationship with Noah evolved over the years is compelling and we are kept in suspense about what will happen after they meet again after John’s stroke. Sadie is also interesting because she’s a bit different from others in her family.
Juliet is described by her mother as perfect, but in fact, her life feels far from perfect. She’s a compelling character because though she has kept of a façade of perfection and having it all, she feels like in some ways things are crumbling and deeply imperfect in her life. Her life is not what it seems to outsiders or what it originally felt like to herself.
Kristan Higgins describes the dynamics of parents and children who show favouritism very well. The bond between Sadie and her father is moving, and the feeling that she has of being less connected to her sister and mother is very well portrayed. It can be frustrating at times to read about how Barbara favours perfect Juliet, even given the context of the different relationships that we learn about.
This is a book that is bound to make readers feel a range of feelings about its characters. You may have a favourite character, since they are all so different. You are likely (as this reviewer did) to find some things that particular characters do to be difficult to understand or disappointing while others things to be entirely understandable and good. The beauty of this novel is that Kristan Higgins has created a family where no one is perfectly good or perfectly bad – there are actions that are hurtful and there are feelings that are also understandable at the same time.
Always The Last To Know is about decisions, and change. In particular, each of the characters has relationships, both familial and romantic, that evolve in different ways over the course of the novel. The novel is also about the things the characters chose in the past, and the decisions they still need to make. Each of them has important choices they must make about their work, their lives as a whole, and the relationships as a result of evolving circumstances. Characters must adapt to changing circumstances, as well: for instance, Sadie must adapt to moving back to her hometown. Always The Last To Know is also about the timing of relationships and other life circumstances and how that affects the characters.
This is a great story for anyone who loves novels about complicated family dynamics and relationships. What is notable is the seamless way Kristan Higgins pieces together the story of this richly complex family, the way relationships between all of them have evolved and continue to during the course of the novel, and the reasons they all live their lives as they do.
Always The Last To Know is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Sometimes you have to break a family to fix it.
From New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins, a new novel examining a family at the breaking point in all its messy, difficult, wonderful complexity.
The Frosts are a typical American family. Barb and John, married almost fifty years, are testy and bored with each other…who could blame them after all this time? At least they have their daughters– Barb’s favorite, the perfect, brilliant Juliet; and John’s darling, the free-spirited Sadie. The girls themselves couldn’t be more different, but at least they got along, more or less. It was fine. It was enough.
Until the day John had a stroke, and their house of cards came tumbling down.
Now Sadie has to put her career as a teacher and struggling artist in New York on hold to come back and care for her beloved dad–and face the love of her life, whose heart she broke, and who broke hers. Now Juliet has to wonder if people will notice that despite her perfect career as a successful architect, her perfect marriage to a charming Brit, and her two perfect daughters, she’s spending an increasing amount of time in the closet having panic attacks.
And now Barb and John will finally have to face what’s been going on in their marriage all along.
From the author of Good Luck with That and Life and Other Inconveniences comes a new novel of heartbreaking truths and hilarious honesty about what family really means.
