Great style, great story, and a fantastic narrator.

Not sure what to think of this book between 3 and 4 stars... Loved the writing. The characters and story were uniquely portrayed vs. how most "best selling " authors would have done it. I could see how he got to the place that he did through his choices. However, something also fell flat for me at the end. But perhaps it was perfectly in keeping with the character himself? Not sure, will think on this one for a bit. Looking forward to discussion.

I was intrigued when I heard about this novel, because I recognized the main character immediately as being inspired by Clark Rockefeller, the man who created a new identity with himself, aligning himself with a well known and wealthy American family, and who also kidnapped his own child. But that seems t be where the similarities end. "Clark" (aka Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, his real name) is currently on trial for murder as well. Ms. Gaige seems to have taken a seed of an idea and has grown a whole new plant from it.

Erik Schroder is German citizen who managed to escape East Germany with his father as a child (without his mother) and who adapts to his new surroundings in Dorcherster, Massachusetts, by changing his name, and in time, his identity. His father does not know this. He becomes Eric Kennedy, and invents a new back story about who he is. He learns to speak perfect American English, receives an outstanding American education and basically manages to create a life that fits the American Dream, for a time.

The writing in this novel is pretty amazing. I had such mixed feelings about Eric, but by the end of the book, if I didn't love him, I certainly had grown to understand him. Ms Gage does such a wonderful job with the writing, and has an amazing way with a phrase:
"My heart flipped. How abandonable a child is."
"Because, of course, there is one thing that really deranges us, and that is the disappearance of love."
"The soul keeps the body up." (Meadow)
There are more, but I don't want to give them all away because when you comes across the gems while reading, they can move you to tears with their truthfulness.

Eric waxes philosophically about his "research" on pauses, silences and loneliness. In the end, whether the reader likes this character, whoever he is, we learn he suffers from a profoundly damaged heart. He makes a very bad decision, possibly caused by the damage done to Eric himself in his earlier years, but it is not made in a malicious way, but from a desperate place of pain and need. Yes, he is selfish. But when it comes to the love most of us feel for our children, it is understandable.

I loved this novel. It's been a good reading year so far!

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. The three stars are mostly for the writing. But it's not the worst book I've read this year.

Erik Schroder is an East German refugee who settles with his father in a suburb outside of Boston where he is bullied by the children of Irish immigrants and is embarrassed by his humble beginnings. At 14, he adopts a new persona, becoming “Eric Kennedy” when he applies to and is accepted at Ossipee Camp which came to his attention through a brochure he spotted at his pediatrician’s office. (Schroder explains the ease of deception by reminding the reader that it occurred prior to the advent of the Internet; yet, even in the Stone Age, weren’t the parents of “scholarship students” vetted before the child was accepted?). Schroder claims that he never traded on his adopted surname; however, he makes his childhood home a fictitious village adjacent to Hyannis Port and he does not dissuade those who make the connection with the August political dynasty. Ultimately, he is able to parlay his new moniker into a college degree, a job, and a marriage to Laura that produces a daughter, Meadow. After five years, the light in the marriage dimmed, and Schroder finds himself the noncustodial parent whose visitation rights diminish. Recognizing that the unsophisticated life story that he concocted at age 14 would unravel were he to wage a custody battle, Schroder thoughtlessly abducts his daughter although he deludes himself into believing that he is not committing a crime and that upon Meadow’s safe return he will just pay a fine.

Because the book is written as a jailhouse confession or apology to Laura (and because Laura’s perspective is missing), Gage is able to manipulate the reader’s emotions so that we sympathize with Schroder and his plight to be with the daughter whom he adores while protecting his “lovingly constructed American life.” We forgive Schroder’s poor parenting choices (such as keeping a rotting fox corpse as a lesson about death) and even rationalize Schroder’s behavior when he seriously endangers Meadow’s life while on the run. Yet, while Gage makes Schroder’s actions seem forgivable, she also makes the reader question his sincerity since Schroder is also portrayed as narcissistic, pretentious and perhaps even unhinged. While the mystery surrounding his mother’s failure to follow the family to West Germany may explain Schroder’s psychology, we learn that Schroder circumvents addressing the truth when his father tries to offer an explanation.

As someone who followed the tale of Christian Gerhartsreiter, the Rockefeller impersonator and con man who abducted his own daughter, I was curious to read the perspective of the kidnapper. I am not sure that Gage authentically rendered the psychology of a middle-aged domestic kidnapper, but she has written an intriguing and riveting love story.

It's hard to rate a book when you are so conflicted about the title character. On the whole, I didn't like Eric Kennedy/Schroder. He was aloof and weird and irresponsible, yet on the other hand I did empathize with him and his very apparent love for his daughter. I found Eric to be a very frustrating person, but also misunderstood (out of necessity since he was lying about his identity!)

The author did an incredible job of writing every single character in this book. Each person was so believable, which is difficult to pull off when the story is told from the viewpoint of just one character. She even got six year old Meadow right.

The ending left me feeling melancholy. I won't say anything else about it, but if Eric and Laura and Meadow were real people, I would wish them the best and hope for the most peaceful of resolutions.

3.5/5

I highly recommend this book when it comes out. The writing is beautiful (although I did catch a few glitches / typos in the ARC). The language is beautiful. Just a really great read that will leave you thinking and wondering about the characters after you put it down.

Erik Schroder, at the young age of fourteen, reinvents himself as Eric Kennedy. He heads off to summer camp and becomes the American youth he wishes to be, not the German immigrant he is. He parlays a camp application into college recommendations, and soon he has created a life for himself out of imagination and determination, but mostly falsehood. We enter his life as he writes a confessional autobiography - throwing himself on the mercy of his estranged wife and ultimately the courts. What follows makes a narrator you can't imagine ever being sympathetic into a likeable but flawed man. His life and his psyche unravel before you in well written prose.



Half way through now - still thoroughly entranced in these characters and this story. I highly recommend this one!

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Three stars at roughly page 50 might seem generous - but I'm really drawn into this book. Was from the very first. I picked up the advanced reader copy at work and couldn't wait to get started based on the jacket synopsis . . . . I'll keep you posted, but so far it's a great read.

Eric Kennedy is not really Eric Kennedy. He was born in East Germany as Erik Schroder. When he dreams up a new persona for himself as a boy newly arrived in the US, the lies eventually grow up around him like weeds, waiting to ensnare him when he's at his most vulnerable. He tells everyone he grew up in America, in a town with a made-up name. He works for years to shed his accent. Eventually, he meets a woman, falls in love, and marries her under his assumed name. They have a daughter, Meadow. Their marriage, like many others today, crumbles under the weight of miscommunication and lack of mutual understanding. All these events take on a momentum that feels inevitable, until finally Eric decides to take his daughter for a road trip instead of returning her to her mother at the end of her weekend visit. This book is Eric's first-person account of that trip, written from prison at the behest of his lawyer.

At under 300 pages, Gaige's book is a quick read, though not a light one. Eric drops hints along the way that his viewpoint is skewed, letting us know we can't trust his stated intentions or his interpretation of events. He seems to love his daughter, but he is also shockingly oblivious to her needs and feelings. He even admits that for the first two years of her life, he wasn't that involved with Meadow, and occasionally would forget he even had a child. Of course, instead of owning the coldness of such feelings, he blames his wife for being too possessive of their daughter. He also avoids taking much responsibility for abducting Meadow, claiming it wasn't premeditated and he just wanted to spend more time with her. Again, Eric feels his wife is at fault, as she was trying to end his visitation rights through the courts.

What's amazing about this book is how Gaige manages to write Eric as, if not a sympathetic character, at least a comprehensible one. She takes us so deeply into his mind that we actually begin to understand his twisted logic. Even as we recognize his actions as irresponsible and hurtful, we see the trajectory his life took that led him there. I always enjoy books that allow me into someone else's psyche in this way; it may be a cliché, but it's revelatory to me to learn what it's like to be someone else in this world. For my money, reading delivers that experience better than just about anything else.

More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com

This book was. . . Fine. I didn't have strong feelings about it one way or the other. Everything was average. The story line was different, but character development was somewhat weak, and the ending was lackluster. The book wasn't great, wasn't terrible, was just. . . Fine.