Blame: A Novel

I couldn't get into the book. I've tried 2 separate times, hoping I could get into it, but I can't/

The life of alcoholic Patsy MacLemoore seems to be heading nowhere until she is arrested and tried for manslaughter. She tries to live sober and learn how to make good decisions for herself. Her story shows how our connections to others, be they friends or passing strangers, affect us in unexpected ways, all of them meaningful if we can reognize and accept what is important from each encounter and relationship. I'm middle-aged male who normally reads non-fiction and occasional PI novels. I left my comfort zone and selected "Blame" based on one small newspaper review. I half-expected something very much not readable by someone in my demographic. I was wrong. Good book, good writer, memorable story.

This is the first novel I have read from Huneven and I loved it. Her beautiful and poetic description of both places and feelings made me long for her talent. I loved the way she portrayed the passage of time. Yes, the book is broken down into sections marked by dates but instead of this feeling like some big announcement to the next part, it did not interfere with the story at all. Time going by felt the same as it would in life. Early on in the story we meet the main character Patsy as a young woman with a serious problem. If this was to be the last time she appeared, I doubt she would have been liked by many readers even though her addictions were apparent. The Patsy we get to know over the course of the book is one of the finest characters I have ever read. We learn how decent a person she really is and just how insidious a monster her addiction was. There is a twist at the end and like many readers, I had it figured out before it came so it is not at all like something you won't see coming but there is a scene that takes place at the end in a Shell station bathroom that was the perfect metaphor for what it really means to be imprisioned and how we choose to handle the way our lives turn out. Patsy learns this over and over again throughout the story. It seems imprisonment ends up meaning far more than time served in jail. The final scene also caught my eye because of the 3 people present. It was as if Patsy had come full circle in a sense. This one is definitely worth the time.

A friend urged me to read this book and he was so right. It's an evocative, unusual story, exceptionally well- written. The first chapter is almost a stand alone story involving a 12 year old girl whose mother is dying, who falls into the care of her irresponsible charming uncle and his smart, alcoholic girlfriend. It's a sly, intelligent beginning, as we see the girlfriend at her drunken worst--except then she goes down even further. For the rest of the book belongs to the girlfriend, Patsy McLemoore, who goes from brilliant, live wire party girl to accidental murderess to (many years later) an adult who can finally live with herself. She sobers up, makes new friends, keeps old friends, marries a charismatic, much older man. The author is subtle, intelligent, and packs so much into her quiet sentences, that I could only marvel how deeply I came to know the characters and their southern California home.This book is a literary find. Also--I would recommend Blame to anyone who is or knows an alcoholic, as it's right on the money concerning the disease and recovery.

Brief summary and review, no spoilers: Patsy MacLemoore is a professor of history at a small college near Pasadena. She is also an alcoholic, who has suffered several blackouts. One morning she wakes up in jail with a bad hangover and having no idea what happened to get her there. She thinks it's probably something minor since she's woke up in jail like this before. But this time it's much more serious - 2 people, a young mother and her daughter were run over and killed. This book is divided into sections by year. We start off in 1980 just one year before this accident, and this novel moves us forward over two decades. During this time we follow Patsy as her life takes this sudden plunge, and as she tries to make amends for what she did. There were many things to love about this novel. I thought the dialogue and characterization were spot on, and I was completely pulled into the story. The locale is mainly Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, and I am very familiar with both places and thought their descriptions were accurate and I could just picture them all. There was also an epic feel to it as we travel the years with Patsy. We age along with her and we share in her traumas. When I turned the last page of this story I felt like I had been through an experience - I needed to think about this book before I could pick up anything else. I think this book would appeal to a lot of people. We relive the AIDS crisis and we learn about the criminal justice system, AA, and what it's like to be in prison. We see (and experience) how life can turn on a dime, and how our lives can take strange trajectories away from our best laid plans. This book is about forgiving and atonement, in the truest sense of both those words. And for those who like this sort of thing (and I do), there is a twist of sorts, towards the end. I highly recommend this book. It was an absolute page-turner for me, and I can easily see this novel being made into a movie. I also recommend it for book clubs as there is a lot to think about and discuss.