Review: Apologize, Apologize! by Elizabeth Kelly
Apologize, Apologize!
by Elizabeth Kelly
Collie Flanagan is the only normal person in his insane Irish-American family. His hedonistic father and radical Marxist mother bring nothing but chaos into the home as they pursue their pleasures; raising their two sons falls largely on the shoulders of Collie’s uncle, a man who cares for all living creatures, including the family dogs and his own racing pigeons. Unfortunately, Uncle Tom’s love manifests by constantly telling Collie and his brother Bing how stupid they are. Financing the family’s ridiculous excesses is Collie’s domineering grandfather, a media mogul wealthy as Crassus. Collie wants nothing more than to be a good person, free from the craziness that surrounds him. When tragedy strikes the Flanagans, Collie is consumed by guilt, and his life becomes an endless apology to others as he struggles to find purpose and meaning once more.
Elizabeth Kelly writes beautifully:
I grew up on Martha’s Vineyard in a house as big and loud as a parade - the clamour resonated along the entire New England coastline. Calliope whistling, batons soaring, trumpets bleating, everything tapping and humming, orchestrated chaos, but we could afford it. My mother was rich, her father’s money falling from the sky like tickertape, gently suppressing the ordinary consequences of all that noise.
Yet this was one of those books that I could have walked away from at any time with no regrets. The characters are unbearably obnoxious with their entitled behavior and acerbic cleverness. I think Kelly was going for ‘quirky’ but missed the mark by a wide margin. I found Collie’s shrieking, hypocritical mother especially difficult to stomach. For the first half of the book, it seems like nothing is happening. The wacky family is paraded out again and again to entertain us with their wit and rancor, but no plot really emerges until a death finally provides the impetus to set Collie on his quest for forgiveness. It dominates the second half of the book, replacing much of the humor with depressing, dreary introspection. As a whole, it’s a very discordant narrative, and the sudden, unresolved ending makes it difficult to consider this book a real winner.
On the plus side, the audio version of this book has a wonderful narrator. He does a fantastic job portraying the diverse accents of the many characters running through the novel.
3 out of 5 stars
To read more about Apologize, Apologize!, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.