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Cost: A Novel By Roxana Robinson ( Farrar, Straus and Giroux )
Release Date: 2008-06-10
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Product Description
THE LUMINOUS AND GRIPPING NEW NOVEL FROM “ONE OF OUR BEST WRITERS” (JONATHAN YARDLEY, THE WASHINGTON POST) When Julia Lambert, an art professor, settles into her idyllic Maine house for the summer, she plans to spend the time tending her fragile relationships with her father, a repressive neurosurgeon, and her gentle mother, who is descending into Alzheimer’s. But a shattering revelation intrudes: Julia’s son Jack has spiraled into heroin addiction. In an attempt to save him, Julia marshals help from her looseknit clan: elderly parents; remarried ex-husband; removed sister; and combative eldest son. Ultimately, heroin courses through the characters’ lives with an impersonal and devastating energy, sweeping the family into a world in which deceit, crime, and fear are part of daily life. Roxana Robinson is the author of Sweetwater, which Booklist called a “hold-your-breath novel of loss and love.” Billy Collins praised Robinson as “a master at moving from the art of description to the work of excavating the truths about ourselves.” In Cost, Robinson tackles addiction and explores its effects on the bonds of family, dazzling us with her hallmark subtlety and precision in evoking the emotional interiors of her characters. The result is a work in which the reader’s sense of discovery and compassion for every character remains unflagging to the end, even as the reader, like the characters, is caught up in Cost’s breathtaking pace.
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 Powerful story ( jansayers )
A dark, disturbing story about a dysfunctional family and how they deal with the nightmare of addiction. Beautifully written and highly recommended.
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Exacting Narrative of the Cost of Addiction ( a_rust )
It would have been enough if this was a story about a busy academic with two kids, an ex-husband, and a pair of problematic parents. There is plenty to explore in that set of relationships alone. That is the tightrope that Julia, the heroine of Cost, faces prior to the moment when she realizes that her youngest son is addicted to heroin.
At the beginning of this novel, Julia's parents are visiting her home in Maine. Her mother is slipping in to the throes of dementia. Her father, a retired neurosurgeon, is cruel. His sense of his own professional accomplishment gets in the way of his relationships with his family.
It permeates each character's notion of their own identity. The father's pride seems to spawn hurt in almost every member of the family. The author takes time to let us understand the feelings of each character. I like that about this writer. She is exact.
Sometimes the best way to describe something is through an artifact. One of my favorite passages concerns a set of keys. Julia had given her ex a little bauble for the keychain on a car, but she kept the car after the divorce. When he visits, the keychain rattles against the dash on the ride home, reminding both of the uneasy break in their lives.
The book is largely about the slow fall of Jack, the youngest son, into heroin addiction. Again, the father's knowledge is somewhat of a problem, as he only wants to look at the issue from a clinical perspective. "Exogenous opiates, not good," he says. I learned some things from this author. She has obviously done some research.
The other interesting thing about this book is a subplot that concerns idealistic people working in non-profits. Robinson populates other novels with these types. Sweetwater, for example, centers on a woman who works on water issues for the Environmental Protection Fund. In this instance, twenty-something Stephen is literally a "tree-hugger," yet he feels angry at the naivete of his actions and the simplicity of the leaders who he has worked for in his young years.
I read this book in six days. I could not put it down. This book would be great for book clubs. There is so much to think about here, from issues of addiction, to broken relationships, to balancing out work and family.
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 A good storyline, but...
I'm not sure if I can finish this book. I agree with the other reviewers who said the prose is unnecessarily flowery and the characters are sort of shallowly stereotypical. I can't bring myself to care about any of them or see them as real people. It's odd that several characters go off on the president in a way tangential and unrelated to the storyline (I could only hear the author's voice in those odd places), and also all enjoy using the phrase "amour propre." Um. I keep skimming to get to the meat of the story, and I don't like to read books that make me feel as though I need to do that. I'm a little bit curious but definitely not riveted.
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Cliche ( reichmars )
I just couldn't wrap my head around this novel about a family dealing with addiction. I had the most difficulty with the lengthy and flowery metaphors which seemed forced and overdone. Of course this is a matter of personal preference - I like my language and my metaphors clean and straight and not a paragraph long.
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The Cost of Connecting... ( chezraine )
What is the cost of family connections? What is the cost of severing them? Julia Lambert asks these questions during a traumatic time in her family's lives.
An artist and professor, Julia departs to her summer home in Maine, to try and connect with her tyrannical father, a former surgeon now retired, and her aging mother, suffering from signs of early Alzheimer's disease. In her father's presence, Julia feels anger. Constantly. She tries to delve into it, to understand it. She remembers moments in their shared pasts. Nothing seems to erase the feeling.
Divorced, Julia has won the old Maine farmhouse in the settlement. It is badly in need of repairs, but she still feels more connected to herself in this place. She hopes that here she can begin to repair the damaged relationships in her life. Her ex-husband, Wendell, has remarried and appears to be reclaiming his life, separate from her and the rest of the family. She struggles against the resentment she feels.
But then, as if blown in by a hurricane, the news of her youngest son's heroin addiction is revealed and takes over all their lives. From the first moments, as the family members try to bring Jack to Maine for an intervention, and hopefully, for treatment, their focus is on him and his disease.
It is not an easy thing, convincing Jack to come to Maine to meet with his family. They have to almost "bribe" him, paying outstanding debts and personally accompanying him---this task has become Wendell's.
Once Jack has arrived at the house, nothing is simple at all. The expert in rehab that they've brought in to help with the intervention seems arrogant, albeit knowledgeable. They all find themselves fighting against their own feelings. And then Jack does something that seems to tilt their whole plan on its axis. From then on, the path to eventual rehabilitation is circuitous and bewildering. With family members trying to do their part in the intervention, it all seemingly unwinds and falls flat. Eventually, though, he is admitted into a rehab facility. But, again, nothing goes according to plan.
In the midst of the chaos that is now her life, Julia manages to put together an art show and secure tenure as a professor at her New York university. But her life is never the same again.
And in the fraught-filled days ahead, she comes to know the terrible costs of addiction...For her, for her family, and for her son.
Gracing us with a poignant glimpse into the seamy side of life, this author reveals much when she shows us the addict's perspective on several occasions in the story. We see the desperation, the gritty need, and the panic, as the addict shoves aside all of his prior knowledge of how to behave in this world, in search of that euphoric high. We feel his fear, his angst, and his pain.
Troubling though it is, this tale brings us back to those initial questions: What is the cost when family relationships are broken? Can anything be repaired?
Cost: A Novel was so compelling that I couldn't wait to find out how things ended for this family.
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