Good-Bye and Amen

Beth Gutcheon makes a risky choice in this novel, a follow-up on the family in Leeway Cottage. Good-Bye and Amen is not just written from the perspective of the family members but, seemingly, from everyone who's ever had any contact of any sort with the Moss clan, including some sort of presiding spirits from the 'other side'. Yes, it's crazy at first, the voices (well-labeled) occasionally interact, as if answering each other's questions or they hint at an event yet unseen, and everyone gets anything from one line to a few pages. I felt very disoriented at first, then realized how aptly it echoed the chaos of that clan. Eventually, I fell into the rhythm of the voices and really enjoyed the style and the book.

The matriarch of the Moss family is long-dead (though unscattered) in Good-Bye and Amen. Sydney Moss dominated Leeway Cottage and the Maine summer home by that name, and she was not a nice person. In Good-Bye, it's the turn of the next generation, her grown children--Eleanor the seemingly well-grounded eldest, Monica, the ever-hungry-for recognition middle child and Jimmy, the prodigal son. And their families, of course, because time marches on; even someone as permanent as Sydney Moss doesn't live forever.

The story really centers around Monica and her husband, a former star lawyer who chucked it all to become an Episcopal Priest. Norman Faithful has the name and the oratory for such a role, but he severely lacks the humility to truly succeed. We're here to watch him fall by the end of a final summer at the Maine Cottage, but we get all the back story in the meantime.

I'm a bit of a sucker for sweeping family dramas and this one delivers. I loved reading about all the accidental and intentional clashes with so many different personalities, all the while grateful that I didn't have to deal with anyone of the characters personally. I'm glad that the "spirits" don't show up often. It's almost as if Gutcheon decided half-way through that her characters can tell their story themselves without the need for an omniscience beyond the grave. I couldn't relate to them and didn't care about them. They weren't even giving any great insight.

I loved that one section of the book is a photo album purportedly of the different generations of the Moss family. I think that was a clever little way to round out the characters. I suppose they come from the author's own family which is another gutsy move.

Gutcheon is a fun writer and clever. Norman Faithful is a pain in the neck, but she gives him some decent lines: America in Bermuda shorts is not a pretty sight, he says about the summer view. His own laziness makes a good story as well, like when he tells the church secretary to do a search and replace on a funeral program used for a woman named Mary to be used for the funeral of a woman named Edna. As one character tells it" ,..and then obviously didn't proof it, because we found ourselves on our knees praying to the Virgin Edna. You wouldn't think it was funny if it was your mother's funeral." So, yeah, Norman is a drag, but I was glad as a reader that his fall didn't come too soon.

I may have to go back to Leeway Cottage, to revisit these characters.