“Housebreaking” by Dan Pope

“Housebreaking,” has all the makings of a good beach read – and so much more. Since the main characters and their supporting cast span three generations — aging grandfolk, dysfunctional parents, and rebellious teens — there’s bound to be one of its highly sympathetic characters to whom the reader can relate. And if you happen to live in the suburbs, Wintonbury might just as well be Yourtown, USA, with its manicured lawns, toys-strewn driveways, doggy walks and deep-set secrets.

Yet, while the character-driven plot openly admits to elder frailty, marital infidelity, and adolescent angst, it never discloses — in a digressive way — the force that spins the wheel of each age-group’s fate: the loss of a loved one. Instead, the power of real and raw story-telling reveals the disabling effects of complicated grief on a family that seems to have everything. That is everything except the presence of a son and brother who died in a car accident before the spiraling events of the novel take place.

In an attempt to escape their tragic past, Audrey Martin-Murray insists the family relocate to Wintonbury, Connecticut, where she attended high school. Hell-bent on buying an old, needy home, she loses herself in renovating projects and Benjamin, the man-boy (almost) next door, recently separated from his wife and living in his father’s house. Husband Andrew, oblivious and frustrated, loses himself in his law firm work and a dangerous professional game.

Dan Pope
Credit: L. Wilcox

Daughter Emily is pretty much just lost — period. The new girl in a school of mean girls and risk-taking boys, she’s the family member who most acknowledges the loss of her sibling. At an other-worldly place where her sorrow, depression and reverie intersect, Emily looks up to find brother Daniel sitting on the beanbag chair in the corner of her room. “I’m here,” he tells her. “I’m always here. You just have to find me.”

Some of the main players of “Housebreaking” are more successful at finding themselves than others. But none are as refreshing and entertaining as the sub-cast of elders — Benjamin’s recently widowed father Leonard Mandlebaum and the widow Terri Funkhouser, who are as entertaining as their full names. Though they grieve, unlike the Martin-Murrays, they are survivors –not victims — of loss, in endearing and, at times, hilarious ways.

New York Times book reviewer Lauren Acampora says Leonard’s “post-stroke view of the world verges on the poetic, his past and present fluidly mingling in a way that’s both perplexing and liberating.” While Pope’s prose is often poignant and insightful, it can be frank and graphic as well. He is not one to shy away from the details of characters behaving– or grieving — destructively.