2008-04-15 Fault Lines

Since fault lines are the barely visible fractures in rocks that will eventually cause seismic shift, Nancy Huston's title implies that all families are riven with these cracks too, caused by past hurts and events, and that they shape and form the way we turn out. If you love family epics full of secrets and lies, prepare for a mesmerizing journey.

The story is told in four chunks narrated in turn by six-year old members of the same family in reverse chronological order.

The first narrator is Sol in California in 2004. Precocious, fiercely intelligent but showing disturbing predilections for internet sex and violence, Sol is a spoilt only child and paints a sharp picture of his pampered existence. His mother Tessa jumps to his every command and his father Randall takes a weary back seat.

We then jump to 1982 and Sol's father Randall takes up the reins, depicting the story two decades earlier on. Randall's driven mother Sadie obsesses and frets over the fate of the Jewish diaspora despite not having been born into the religion herself, driving her husband, failed playwright Aron and son to distraction and the whole family to the other end of the world.

Then it's 1962 and we learn a little about why Sadie became so serious and humourlessly focused, how it was for her growing up with a sexy but flighty famous siren singer, Erra/Kristina for a mother.

And finally,the scene hops to 1944. Sadie's mother Kristina is herself a child and the major upheavals in her young life come to light. Hugely potent and conflicting emotions and loyalties pull her in opposite directions. Perhaps the only way to cope with such losses and confusion is to become fickle and protect oneself from future hurt.

At each step, the reader gains insights into why people have turned out the way they are, what they are both rebelling against and embracing, their loves, dreams, passions and traumas. With each chunk finished, more of the pieces of the jigsaw slot together and bewildering eccentrics become more comprehensible.

The whole is a rich, glorious, compelling history of a family that, like so many others, looks ordinary from the outside but is anything but within. This is a tender, moving and often hilarious novel with the capacity to inspire hope, tears and laughter.

****0