The Descendants

Reviews

“Audaciously comic…Hemmings channels the voice of her befuddled middle-aged hero with virtuosity, as he teeters between acerbic and sentimental, scoffing at himself even as he grasps for redemption.”

“Hemmings is a determinedly unsentimental writer, and she manages her hazardous subject matter—all of it ripe for strenuous melodrama—in a dry, understated way, subverting her characters without reducing them utterly…Her comic sense is finely honed in this refreshingly wry debut novel.”

“Gripping and funny…A brave and intelligent novel.”

“With beautiful and blunt prose, Hemmings explores the emotional terrain of grief, promising something far more fulfilling than paradise at its end.”

“Manages to be shockingly irreverent and funny while exerting that all-important emotional tug…The Kings prove to be a richly complicated as their Mexican housekeeper’s cooking…A well-plotted, unexpectedly twisting saga which…manages to avoid mawkishness and schmaltz.”

“Hemmings pulls off a remarkable feat in making the Kings’ sense of loss all the more wrenching for being directed at a woman who was neither a good wife nor a good mother.”

“[A] sharply observed, frequently hilarious, and intermittently heartbreaking look at at well-meaning but confused father trying to hold together his unconventional family.”

“Evincing a sublimely mature style and beguiling command of theme and setting, Hemmings’ virtuoso performance offers a piquantly tender and winsome comic portrait of a singular family’s revealing response to tragedy.”

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