An environmental journalist in Washington, DC, Rachel has shunned her New England working-class family for years. Divorced and childless in her middle age, she's a true independent spirit with the pain and experience to prove it. Coping with challenges large and small, she thinks her life is in free fall-until she's summoned home to deal with the aftermath of her mother's death. Surrounded by a cast of sometimes comic, sometimes heartbreakingly serious characters—an arriviste sister, an alcoholic brother-in-law and, most importantly, the love of her life recently married to the sister's best friend-Rachel must come to terms with her past, the sorrow she has long buried, and the ghost of the mother who, for better and worse, made her the woman she is.
If you’re facing a painful trip home this month...ttuck a copy of Kate Christensen’s tempestuous new novel in your suitcase. There’s a good chance your own travails will pale next to those faced in Welcome Home, Stranger. And if not, at least Christensen will serve as a wise captain to guide you through the family storm. Of course, novels about going home are as common as flight delays. And a certain degree of rigor mortis has crept into the plot of relatives gathering in the wake of a death. But Christensen’s narrator charges into that worn storyline with refreshing candor ... a deeply endearing story about confronting one’s past and constructing a new future — under extreme duress ... If Christensen didn’t have such a clever sense of humor, the situation she throws her narrator into — returning to help spread Mom’s ashes — could feel intolerably dreary. But everything about this initial homecoming has been designed to prick Rachel with comic humiliation ... The success of this novel, Christensen’s eighth, rests wholly on her ability to create the artful illusion of ricocheting events — sudden swerves of grief, chance encounters that spiral toward disaster and a series of setbacks that pile up Job-like at the worst possible time ... the most lovely ending of a novel I’ve read all year.
Incisive ... Rachel’s deep observations, bitter and smart and sad, steer us through this coming-of-middle-age tale of a driven, wounded woman seeing her present self in contrast to her life of origin.
Unflinching ... Christensen’s use of present tense brings an immediacy and urgency to her storytelling ... Christensen also does a skillful job of animating difficult family relationships while avoiding a conventional arc of forgiveness ... Doesn’t always deliver. Driven by Rachel’s over-analytical first-person voice, the narrative — as well as the dialogue — is frequently freighted with exposition, which, in turn, sometimes flattens the reckless spirit of the novel.
