“But you should stick with it because there will come a point where you'll suddenly find your footing. Where (maybe on the road with June, or in the story of Luke's mother) the whole delicate origami construction of interlocking stories that Clegg is building will blossom outward and you'll see it for the first time as the whole thing that it is — this spindly web of connection, this sticky, terrible, comforting, fully realized community of small, damaged and ordinary people all brought together by a moment that no one can understand.”
“I had to glance through the book again to make sure I was remembering all of these characters, because some have their say and then disappear. This was initially frustrating — but while the interludes don’t necessarily move the story forward, they do add a beautiful layer of sound. What may seem superfluous finally proves lovely and essential.”
“This is one of those novels in which digression piles upon digression until the digressions become the thing itself. You float on a raft of misdirection ... We get the author’s point. Life is easy for none of us and, as he might put it, funny how time slips away. But these events don’t resonate as they scroll past. It’s like watching someone stir plastic toads in an unlit caldron.”
“Although its inspiration may be ripped from the headlines, Bill Clegg's beautifully written debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family, goes way deeper than lurid banner news accounts to illuminate how grief, guilt, regrets and the deep need for human connection are woven into the very flammable fabric of humanity. The most sensational thing about this novel is how it manages to accomplish all this without a whiff of schadenfreude, prurience or mawkishness”
“...[an] absorbing, psychologically-astute debut ... With crosscutting perspectives and a voluminous cast of characters, Clegg constructs a layered narrative with some dexterous plot twists — but also some eyebrow-raising efforts to envision life outside his apparent comfort zone of pale affluence.”
“Balancing 10 narrators is a difficult task, and Clegg mostly manages to keep these characters vivid and distinct. At times, however, what he seems to intend as a common stoicism and earnestness can instead make voices feel flatly indistinguishable.”
