Review: ‘The Two-Family House’

Abe and Mort are brothers who live in a two-family brownstone in Brooklyn with their wives. Abe and Helen live upstairs with their four sons, and Mort and Rose live downstairs with their three daughters. Abe and Mort own the family business, Box Brothers, making boxes for companies.

We meet them in 1947 as Helen and Rose are struggling to maintain their sanity while spending days at home with their young children. The two are best friends and chat about their struggles raising the children, their marriages and their responsibilities to their Jewish faith and extended families. You feel like the house is an idyllic setting with cousins living almost like siblings, having two sets of parents within reach at any time. But, then you start to see the cracks. Even as the families seem to be intertwined, Rose tends to be more resentful of Helen than Helen realizes. Mort is not the most appreciative husband and has been difficult to live with over the years. Helen is maybe a bit too perfect and overbearing. Can Abe really be that happy all the time?

One morning over coffee, the two women find out that both of them are pregnant and due at the same time. Even with all their pregnancies, they've never been pregnant together. The women are shocked but hope, for different reasons, that this child will be the answer to their prayers. As a terrible blizzard hits the East Coast, the two women go into labor with their husbands away and make a decision that will fracture the relationship between the two women and their families forever.

This novel is the author's first but doesn't read as one. The story is character driven with each chapter told from that character's point of view. In the beginning, we hear from the brothers and their wives as they tell the stories from their perspective. You feel the anger, resentment, love, loss, bitterness and forgiveness. There will be characters you will love and others you will want to hate. As we travel through the years, we hear from the children as they grow up, and your perspective on the parents begin to change. You almost feel like you are sitting at the dinner table as the stories unfurl in front of you.

It's definitely a page-turner, especially if you like family dramas that take you through the generations. Every decision we make has consequences, good or bad.

Reading this novel gives you a voyeuristic view of the ripple effect one decision can make and whether telling the truth is worth the repercussions.

After spending 23 years with the family, you are left satisfied as the novel ends, yet feel the loss of a family you will miss spending time with - even if the ending is a bit too neat and tidy.