Like Family by Erin O. White
Erin White’s debut novel, LIKE FAMILY is the complex story of three couples navigating through their partnerships and friendships in midlife.
Set in fictional Radclyffe, New York, an idyllic upstate town not unlike our own Grand Marais, with the requisite artisanal bakeries, artist and pottery studios, and a landscape dotted with woods, water, and stone. Ruth and her wife Wyn are living with their four children on a small hobby farm, which is also the bucolic gathering spot for their group of friends: Caroline and her husband Mike with their son Luca, and Evie and Tobi and their twins.
The three couples gather regularly to celebrate holidays and birthdays or just hang out. They are each other’s chosen family, though like family, their relationships can sometimes be messy and complicated. When a near-stranger in their town dies, all three couples are faced with confronting long buried tensions and secrets that have bubbled under the surface of their lives.
The beauty in this novel lies in its characters and their struggles to redefine both their relationships and their identities in midlife. They make mistakes. They hurt each other. But ultimately, they tend to each other with grace – forgiving each other’s transgressions and accepting each other’s unique foibles – forging deeper connections.
Fans of Ann Patchett and Ann Napolitano and their stories of complex family dynamics will find a new favorite in Erin White’s LIKE FAMILY. Listen to my author interview with Erin on Superior Reads on Thursday, November 27 at 7pm and Saturday, November 29 at 6am on Superior Reads, WTIP Radio 90.7 Grand Marais.
