The Laments

A Novel

By: George Hagen

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Meet the Laments - the affably dysfunctional globetrotting family at the center of George Hagen’s exuberant debut novel.

Howard is an engineer who dreams of irrigating the Sahara and lives by the motto “Laments move!” His wife Julia is a fiery spirit who must balance her husband’s oddly peripatetic nature with unexpected aspirations of her own. And Will is the “waif with a paper-thin heart” who is given to Howard and Julia in return for their own child who has been lost in a bizarre maternity ward mishap. As Will makes his way from infancy to manhood in a family that careens from continent to continent, one wonders where the Laments will ever belong.

In Bahrain, Howard takes a job with an oil company and young Will makes his first friend. But in short order he is wrenched off to another land, his mother’s complicated friendship with the American siren Trixie Howitzer causing the family to bolt. In Northern Rhodesia, during its last days as a white colony, the twin enfants terribles Marcus and Julius are born, and Will falls for the gardener’s daughter, a girl so vain that she admires her image in the lid of a biscuit tin. But soon the family’s life is upturned again, this time by their neighbor Major Buck Quinn, with his suburban tirades against black self-rule.

Envisioning a more civilized life on “the sceptered isle,” the Laments board an ocean liner bound for England. Alas, poor Will is greeted by the tribal ferocity of his schoolmates and a society fixated on the Blitz. No sooner has he succumbed to British pop culture in the guise of mop-top Sally Byrd and her stacks of 45s, than the Laments uproot themselves once again, and it’s off to New Jersey, where life deals crisis and opportunity in equal measure.

Undeniably eccentric, the Laments are also universal. Every family moves on in life. Children grow up, things are left behind; there is always something to lament. Through the Lament’s restlessness, responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen gives us a portrait of every family that is funny, tragic, and improbably true.

©2004 George Hagen (P)2004 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"A family story on speed, with a jolt of black comedy that makes it a close relative to that greatest of all American family stories, The Simpsons." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A funny, touching novel about the meaning of family." (Publishers Weekly)
"Mr. Hagen has shaped an affectionate family portrait in which the characters come vividly to life, no matter how adrift they may be." (The New York Times)

I loved this book.

I read this book in hardcover and then listened to it again. It was even better the second time around. George Hagen has an engaging style and kept my interest from start to finish. I hope that he will write more in the future.

Highly original

This was one of the most enjoyable novels I have read in a while. I can't exactly say why I enjoyed this book so immensely. Perhaps, the story of this family that picks up and moves to different parts of the world every few years strikes a chord for how we all sometimes experience the feeling of being an outsider. Who but an outsider can appreciate the dysfunctionality that everyone else inside a culture takes for granted? Who but an outsider can feel the loss of not belonging? This is a quick-paced, very entertaining book. While it has its share of tragic moments, it is also full of "laugh out loud" humor, intelligent asides, and dialogue that rings true. The characters of all ages - from the young children to the grandmother - vividly drawn. The narrator did an excellent job. He not only gave each character a voice, but changed accents (South African, British, American) adroitly.

Surprisingly engaging

My book group really liked this book. The characters were interesting, and the Laments' saga made for engaging discussion.

Reminded me of a John Irving novel

I tremendously enjoyed this audiobook and was constantly thinking of how very John Irving-like the story seemed....it's a bit weird, with tragic moments presented in a very unsentimental way. Seems contemporary and realistic even in its portrayal of the past, very appealing, drew me in immediately. The reader does a good job and I would be very eager to read another book by this author or to hear this narrator again.