Aha! I really liked this book. Been a bit since I’ve read something I can unreservedly say I liked. There were a few parts in the middle where I started to get nervous, but Lutz resolved my fears quickly. Best short description of the novel that I can come up with is to say it’s a harder edged version of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum stories, with a point behind them to boot. There’s zany feuding characters like the Plum novels, but they actually come much closer to seeming real. The Plum novels feel like they exist only to tell an entertaining story (which is not a bad end in itself). The Spellman Files got me thinking about the nature and extent of freedom, particularly with respect to the lives of some of my relatives.
The Spellmans are a family of private investigators. The parents Albert and Olivia (the father being an ex-cop) included the kids in investigations from a young age, so snooping on other people (and each other) is second nature to them. The oldest sibling is son David, the goody two shoes perfect child. He kinda sorta got out of the business by becoming a lawyer, though he hires his own family for work his law office needs. In other words, he never truly got away from it. Second sibling is Isabel, two years younger than David. She’s the bad girl of the family. Drugs. Boys. Bad grades. Etc. Though she’s straightened up somewhat after reaching adulthood, she never manages to become normal
. The last kid is Rae, trailing Isabel by 14 years. Neither great nor bad, she is mostly a co-dependent type, alternately feuding with then trying to fix the character defects of her family. Uncle Ray also lives with the family, but he is mostly a foil for the other characters.
The book really consists of two parts. After a brief introduction that intimates that trouble lies ahead, Isabel (our narrator) gives a history of the family. This part felt a lot like a series of disconnected sketches, making it bit more choppy and not quite as even as the second part. The second half details a burned-out Isabel’s attempt to become more normal and get away from the family. Mom and Dad worry about not being able to keep an eye on 28 year old Isabel, so they refuse to provide a job reference to Isabel unless she works one last case for the family firm. The idea being that by the time she’s done, Isabel will change her mind about quitting and making some space for herself away from the family. Albert and Olivia think Isabel will go back to her self destructive teenage ways unless they are around to guide her.
Rae feuds with her alcoholic namesake Uncle Ray, and habitually spies on Isabel. For reasons different than their parents, she doesn’t want Isabel to leave either. She wants her sibling to be around for her, as well as a happy well-adjust family to boot. So she’s constantly manipulating and conniving to keep Isabel at home.
The moral of the book is that people should be free to make their own choices. The entire Spellman clan is always trying to manipulate each other and monitor each other to guide each other to make better decisions. The surveillance does nothing more than make everyone paranoid, however. Each hoards their secrets that much more. And when dealing with outsiders, particularly Isabel’s various boyfriends, the secrets and tracking frightens them away.
As the coda (which I won’t spoil) reveals though, giving someone freedom doesn’t cause them to make better choices necessarily. Constant meddling or lack of it doesn’t seem to guarantee or prevent right decisions. It just reduces the stress and fighting when making them.
As I’ve written on Rat’s Reading before, my mom’s struggle with A.L.S. ended last fall. Over the 18 month period she declined with the illness, she made many decisions with which I disagreed. She didn’t want to learn to use an A.A.C. device. She didn’t want to use painkillers. She delayed having in-home caregivers long after they could have made things easier. I argued with her, but ultimately they were her choices to make right or wrong. She had to live and die with the consequences. So did I, of course. It’s hard to watch someone have things harder than one thinks they need to be. I can sympathize with the Spellman parents, and perhaps I might even have tried their kind of manipulation had I the power. But I can guarantee that exercising that kind of control over another’s choices will result in unhappiness, even if the first-order goals are achieved. My mom might have lived a more pain-free end of her life, but she would have been unhappy at being forced into it. The Spellman parents might force Isabel to avoid drugs and marry a lawyer, but their efforts certainly will result in a morose daughter if they succeed. Nominally better decisions but practically a bad result.
The ending really hit home for me. Wish I could tell you why, but you’ll need to go read it instead.
Wasn’t that all deep and discussion like? The book itself is nowhere near so heavy. In fact, it compares well with Hiaasen for humor value, though in a different vein. I laughed out loud (something I rarely do when reading) all the way through the book. Unfortunately, the setup for most of the humor is long , or spoiling it will make it not so funny. So I can’t think of a good example to give anyone a taste. But it’s good enough that I think this would make a great action-comedy movie, particularly compared with the normal flat buddy-cop formula that seems to pervade the action-comedy film genre.
A few other blogged reviews:
Title: The Spellman Files
Author: Lisa Lutz
Series: The Spellmans; 1
Imprint / publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: Advance readers copy
Length: 337 p.
Publication date: March 2007
ISBN-10: 1-4165-3239-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-3239-2
Subject: Private investigators — Fiction
LC classification: PS3612.U897 S67 2007
I agree with you! This is a funny, quirky series that makes you laugh and enjoy. Good stuff.