A Modern Family
Socrates
Adams. Blue Moose Books Ltd, $12.99 paperback (220p) ISBN 978-0957549708
A Modern Family is about a television presenter
on a popular car show in England (almost explicitly James May), his wife, Prudence,
and their children Bobby (15) and Ellen (slightly older). They live in
upper-class London (not extravagantly so). Being a family of four with one girl
and one boy, they rang to me, at least in outward appearances, as the
quintessential traditional family.
Conceptually,
the story first struck me as a better idea for a short story than a novel. A book centered around a semi-popular celebrity was strange to read at the
start. I wondered how in the hell Adams was going to sustain the concept, but then
he does. It develops. It’s thematic. The characters are varied but conceptually
linked, and there were several troubling emotional moments.
Stylistically,
there is something powerful in the disorientation in the prose. Adams often
writes like an alien chronicling human culture.
“One of the children screws up her
face. She is the oldest one. The best way to tell the children apart is that
one is a boy and one is a girl.” (pg. 4)
But it
is through the straightforward, unbiased presentation of information that we
view ‘modern life’ in a new way—for how strange it is.
Content-wise,
Adams seems to be ruminating on detachment. Each of the family members has some
sort of unfulfilled longing. For Ellen, it’s her secret longings for a lesbian
relationship with her best friend. For Bobby, it’s an in-game romance on World
of Warcraft. Prudence longs to live Kate and Prince William’s wedding, and the television
presenter longs for longing. I’m simplifying things a little here but all the
families’ wants are abstract or impossible. The closer they come to attaining
the objects of their affections the more absurd their situations become. The
family lists aimlessly. They tear themselves up both figuratively and literally
in increasingly misguided attempts at happiness. It’s not an upbeat book.
“It’s
not fair to anyone for her only feeling in life to be a pathetic, unfulfilled
love. Ellen wants to burn everything down and sit in the ashes and do nothing.”(pg.124)
It’s
easy then to extend Adams’ critique of the family to society as whole. We are
always wanting, we could always be a little happier if we had something else,
the more impossible the better. We are first and foremost consumers and then
family members, students, employees, etc.
Instead of focusing on personal sadness
and ambivalence as the subject of his work, Adams seems to be looking
from the outside in—it’s far from catharsis for him. Adams is a first rate
satirist. Modern Family
is really
funny, thought provoking, and often morally disgusting. All of his
characters
are tragic figures because they’re so powerless, and Adams writes them
so well that instead of demanding blame, they all demand sympathy. (July
2013)
Purchase
A Modern Family HERE.
Reviewer
bio: Wyatt Sparks lives in Chicago. His echap As We All Change is
forthcoming in 2013 from Love Symbol Press.
