Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Mariner Books (2008), Edition: Reprint, 340 pages
Description
The dazzling Orange Prize shortlisted novel of a family in crisisFrom the Booker longlisted author of Almost English Shortlisted for the Orange Prize 'The Rubin family, everybody agrees, seems doomed to happiness' Claudia Rubin is in her heyday. Wife, mother, rabbi and sometime moral voice of the nation, everyone wants to be with her at her older son's glorious February wedding. Until Leo becomes a bolter and the heyday of the Rubin family begins to unravel . . . 'As intelligent as it is funny. A beautifully observed literary comedy as well as a painfully accurate description of one big old family mess' Observer 'Fast-paced and engaging. Brilliant, touching and true' Naomi Alderman, Financial Times 'Absolutely spellbinding, so funny, so moving, so totally believable' Jacqueline Wilson 'Intelligent and witty. The Rubin family may be a singular one but the delights and the difficulties its members have with sex and spirituality, food and domesticity, expectation and achievement, will have a universal appeal' Sunday Telegraph 'Funny and emotionally true, this is a comedy with the warmest of hearts and the most deliciously subversive of agendas' Book of the Month, Marie Claire When We Were Bad is a warm, poignant and true portrayal of a London family in crisis, in love, in denial and - ultimately - in luck..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member brenzi
Oh my. Charlotte Mendelson, you sly one, you. Who knew that the erstwhile Booker nominee had written a novel that would totally consume me in the reckless manner that it did? The fact that I could barely stand to set it down for a minute only added to the overall satisfaction of a tightly written
Claudia Rubin is at the height of her powers: wife, mother, rabbi and moral authority for all, she is holding forth at the wedding of her oldest son, Leo, when the unthinkable happens. He bolts and runs off with none other than the wife of a fellow rabbi. Oi, the embarrassment! But that’s just the start as her family begins to unravel and Mendelson is there to report every misstep and unpeel the layers, one by one. Never has a mother’s suffocating hold on her family been more deservedly challenged.
She is so consumed by this incident that she fails to notice that her oldest daughter, Frances, is in the throes of post-natal depression. Youngest son Simeon is in a drug fueled haze and daughter Emily brings an unusual young man home (or is it a woman?). Meanwhile, patriarch Norman has been working, secretly, on a bombshell book that will bring him much more notoriety than anything his much more famous wife has published.
Claudia takes everything in stride and Mendelson describes her philosophy with an astonishing eye for detail:
”Claudia, running her fingertips over the plaster, thinks of skiing. A terrible sport: the ice, the pain, the slicing metal. It has, however, one thing in its favour. It demonstrates perfectly how best to lead one’s life. Simply the image of herself speeding over metaphorical moguls while other people, more earnest and dangly earringed, plough through the snowdrifts, emoting, discussing, sharing, has always cheered her.” (Page 216)
This is a wonderful literary comedy that will remind you of the ramshackle lives of people you know and will make you laugh out loud. Very highly recommended.
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narrative, filled with witty observations and characters that you come to care about even though they have few redeeming characteristics. Claudia Rubin is at the height of her powers: wife, mother, rabbi and moral authority for all, she is holding forth at the wedding of her oldest son, Leo, when the unthinkable happens. He bolts and runs off with none other than the wife of a fellow rabbi. Oi, the embarrassment! But that’s just the start as her family begins to unravel and Mendelson is there to report every misstep and unpeel the layers, one by one. Never has a mother’s suffocating hold on her family been more deservedly challenged.
She is so consumed by this incident that she fails to notice that her oldest daughter, Frances, is in the throes of post-natal depression. Youngest son Simeon is in a drug fueled haze and daughter Emily brings an unusual young man home (or is it a woman?). Meanwhile, patriarch Norman has been working, secretly, on a bombshell book that will bring him much more notoriety than anything his much more famous wife has published.
Claudia takes everything in stride and Mendelson describes her philosophy with an astonishing eye for detail:
”Claudia, running her fingertips over the plaster, thinks of skiing. A terrible sport: the ice, the pain, the slicing metal. It has, however, one thing in its favour. It demonstrates perfectly how best to lead one’s life. Simply the image of herself speeding over metaphorical moguls while other people, more earnest and dangly earringed, plough through the snowdrifts, emoting, discussing, sharing, has always cheered her.” (Page 216)
This is a wonderful literary comedy that will remind you of the ramshackle lives of people you know and will make you laugh out loud. Very highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member LyzzyBee
Excellent portrayal of a crisis- ridden family trying to maintain the illusion of normality and success. It opens at Leo's wedding and follows his and Frances' bids for freedom, their mother's attempt to maintain her position and their father's secret life as he prepares for a momentous occasion.
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The fact that the family is Jewish adds an interesting dimension and gives the plot events to hang on. It's very well done, funny and clever. I've read another book by this author and will look out for her others. Show Less
LibraryThing member nocto
I really enjoyed this. A rambling kind of family saga in some ways, but the sort that cover a lot of family in a short space of time rather than sort that transcend generations. The central characters are the members of a London Jewish family - Claudia, successful mother, and Norman, unsucessful
I found the characters all pretty believable, often they are "larger than life" in the way that real people really are. What I really liked was that the ending of the book didn't wrap everything up neatly (because frankly I wouldn't have believed that - there were characters here who weren't going to see the error of their ways) and that the author didn't make it clear who she thought was right and who was wrong. (My take would be that I loved Frances, liked Norman and could see where Leo was coming from; totally disliked Claudia and the two younger children were hideous.) I thought it was all going to end in either a big morality tale finish or a huge party where they all lived happily ever after. Neither happened I'm glad to say.
I'll certainly watch out for more by Mendelson.
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father, and their four grown up children (for various values of "grown up").I found the characters all pretty believable, often they are "larger than life" in the way that real people really are. What I really liked was that the ending of the book didn't wrap everything up neatly (because frankly I wouldn't have believed that - there were characters here who weren't going to see the error of their ways) and that the author didn't make it clear who she thought was right and who was wrong. (My take would be that I loved Frances, liked Norman and could see where Leo was coming from; totally disliked Claudia and the two younger children were hideous.) I thought it was all going to end in either a big morality tale finish or a huge party where they all lived happily ever after. Neither happened I'm glad to say.
I'll certainly watch out for more by Mendelson.
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LibraryThing member phoebesmum
Rabbi Claudia Rubin maintains a careful public façade of glamour and efficiency, but the illusion is shattered when her elder son, Leo, runs away in the middle of his own wedding and elopes with the officiating Rabbi’s wife. When we look more closely at Claudia’s life, we realise it’s all an
I’m not sure why I have this book, let alone in hardback; that is, it must have been on my Amazon wishlist, but I don’t know why. I presume it was an Amazon recommendation, in which case it should stand as an object lesson; this certainly isn’t something I would choose to read.
One thing I found particularly offensive was the author’s reverse racism, whereby she and her characters believe, or purport to believe, that everyone who isn’t themselves Jewish must automatically be anti-Semitic. I’m pretty sure that most people don’t much care one way or another.
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illusion: she tolerates her husband’s literary efforts only because he’s unsuccessful, her children are only permitted lives of their own insofar as she says so, she leans heavily on her elder daughter, Frances, who has an unsatisfactory marriage of her own to deal with, her two younger children are feckless, selfish, and monstrous, and the whole family lives in squalor and decay. Over the course of the book Frances and Leo manage to effect some sort of escape, and Claudia’s long-suffering husband achieves a degree of success; the other two children remain unreformed and unspeakable, as does Claudia herself.I’m not sure why I have this book, let alone in hardback; that is, it must have been on my Amazon wishlist, but I don’t know why. I presume it was an Amazon recommendation, in which case it should stand as an object lesson; this certainly isn’t something I would choose to read.
One thing I found particularly offensive was the author’s reverse racism, whereby she and her characters believe, or purport to believe, that everyone who isn’t themselves Jewish must automatically be anti-Semitic. I’m pretty sure that most people don’t much care one way or another.
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LibraryThing member lahochstetler
The Rubin family is completely dysfunctional, but to outsiders they appear to be quite the opposite. The family turns on the edicts of its matriarch, Claudia , London't most renowned rabbi. The family is expected to act as a single-minded unit. The children are not supposed to leave home and live
This book is about a seemingly perfect family falling apart in a highly comical way. Mendelson has a knack for writing comedy into small human actions. The family manages to be completely irritating and somewhat charming at the same time. By the end of the book I had developed real affection for Norm, the husband, and Frances, the eldest daughter. I was cheering both of them on to rebellion. Claudia and the younger son, Simeon, were a bit harder to stomach. Still the book is well-worth reading for the rich and entertaining world that Mendelson has drawn around the Rubin family.
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lives of their own. The younger two are utterly incapable of functioning as adults anyway. And then the family starts to fall apart. It begins with Leo Rubin's running away from his own wedding with another woman. And then they fall like dominoes. This book is about a seemingly perfect family falling apart in a highly comical way. Mendelson has a knack for writing comedy into small human actions. The family manages to be completely irritating and somewhat charming at the same time. By the end of the book I had developed real affection for Norm, the husband, and Frances, the eldest daughter. I was cheering both of them on to rebellion. Claudia and the younger son, Simeon, were a bit harder to stomach. Still the book is well-worth reading for the rich and entertaining world that Mendelson has drawn around the Rubin family.
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LibraryThing member ccayne
Life revolves around Rabbi Claudia Rubin and her family struggles to find a way to have their own identities. It begins when her eldest son walks out of his wedding to be with the woman he chose, another Rabbi's wife. This declaration of independence sets in motion similar efforts from his siblings
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and his father. Show Less
LibraryThing member risadabomb
I got this book after reading all the great reviews by other readers. However, I just could not get into this plot at all. The story had a hard time capturing my interest and I did not even have the desire to finish this book.
LibraryThing member ellenem
I loved this. It was a great read and also perceptive in its understanding of family dynamics.
LibraryThing member hazelk
I enjoyed this novel. It had good narrative drive, made me smile at times added to which there was some excellent conversation. I did have to suspend quite a lot of disbelief at the two eldest adult children's slow emancipation as fully developed free-thinking individual but overall very readable.
LibraryThing member mairangiwoman
Life has been fairly stable and successful for Rabbi ........ the mother of the family and her writer husband has always been the secondary influence. Writes well researched books but makes no money . Children do as they are told, sort of. Always show a united powerful front as a family. All this
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unravels and changes. Good number of surprises and twists and absorbing enough to the end although the mother [rabbi] is an irritating character.The mother of the family, who is a rabbi, controls, organises, manages,entertains, manipulates her husband and 3 grown up children, until a few surprises occur and she and the others evolve with new roles. I enjoyed the slow unwinding and revealing and changes of the characters but found the surprises at the end too sudden to meld in with reality. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2008)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2008-02
ISBN
0547085923 / 9780547085920