In New England, Susan Bliss is a young mother married to a professor. In LA, Susan Byrne stars in a soap opera beloved coast to coast. Decades after she’s gone, her twins have no idea of their mother’s fame. But the past can’t stay hidden forever.
Slow to start ... Once the story is set up, the conflicts build enough momentum to sustain the narrative ... What Fallon has successfully highlighted is the conflict any ambitious creative person feels when it comes to raising a family ... An exploration of how a person can have competing desires and the damage serving more than one ambition can create. Fallon has found a compelling way to tell that story, and as the novel progresses, so does the reader’s longing for an answer.
The story moves gracefully across timelines ... While occasionally overindulging the dramatic – numerous mementos are, quite unnecessarily, burned, sliced, and drowned – these pages are filled with love, even as that love is strained and misshapen. Fallon’s faith in sincerity is disarming ... What keeps Family Drama from collapsing into melodrama is Fallon’s exquisite attention to physicality ... A soap opera may deal in illusion, but Family Drama returns us to the body – as proof of love, damage, and the inheritances parents leave behind, willingly or otherwise.
Fallon’s striking debut delineates the whipsaw nature of duality ... Assured in her craftsmanship, radiant in her compassionate characterizations, Fallon invites comparisons to Ann Patchett, Ann Napolitano, and Anne Tyler.
