Introduction

A dazzling story of fathers, sons, and brothers - bound by love, divided by history

The Auberons are a lovably neurotic, infernally intelligent family who love and hate each other-and themselves-- in equal measure. Driven both by grief at his young mother's death and war with his distant, abusive immigrant father, patriarch Isidore almost attains the life of his dreams: he works his way through Harvard and then medical school; he marries a beautiful and even-keeled girl; in his father-in-law, he finds the father he always wanted; and he becomes a father himself. He has talent, but he also has rage, and happiness is not meant to be his for very long. Isidore's sons, Leo and Mack, haunted by the mythic, epic proportions of their father's heroics and the tragic events that marked their early lives, have alternately relied upon and disappointed one another since the day Mack was born. For Leo, who is angry at the world but angrier at himself, the burden of the past shapes his future: sexual awakening, first love, and restless attempts live up to his father's ideals. Just when Leo reaches a crossroads between potential self-destruction and new freedom, Mack invites him on a road trip from Los Angeles to Cleveland. As the brothers make their way east, and towards understanding, their battles and reconciliations illuminate the power of family to both destroy and empower-and the price and rewards of independence. Part family saga, part coming-of-age story, In the Land of the Living is a kinetic, fresh, bawdy yet earnest shot to the heart of a novel about coping with death, and figuring out how and why to live.

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Excerpt

At three, Leo was of an average weight and height, and of the usual tender flesh, but his mother thought that something inside him was different from other children she knew. He’d spoken a bit early, true enough, but it wasn’t his aptitudes that struck her as unusual. She didn’t care that much for aptitudes anyway. His heart was heavier, she thought. His face sometimes had a kind of medieval stillness and sobriety to it — like a face, say, looking out on the centuries from a unicorn tapestry that’s itself unchanged and unchangeable. Any mention of his father would elicit the stillness, and so could many other unpredictable things. He seemed depressed. She sent him to a preschool that was run by psychoanalysts. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

In the Land of the Living Alienation between father and son plays a big role in the novel. How is Isidore’s alienation from his father, Ezer, similar to and different from Leo’s alienation from his father, Isidore? In what ways are the fathers immune to change, while the sons are able to embrace it?

The part I chapter titles mimic those in medieval romances. Do you think Leo romanticizes and idealizes his father? Why?

In what ways does Isidore’s life story undermine the romantic idealism expressed in the chapter titles?

Why does the lady with the cane upset Isidore?

In the Land of the Living is in some ways an immigrant story. How does the Auberon family history either support or contradict the notion of the American dream?

What does the road trip across the country say about the American dream?

Is the author’s view cynical, sincere, or a combination of the two?

Why do you think the brothers Leo and Mack become alienated from one another? Do siblings sometimes become surrogates for parents? How do you think that sort of dynamic has affected Leo and Mack?

What enables the brothers to reconcile during the course of their road trip across the U.S.? Do the brothers change as people in the course of their road trip? Are there examples that suggest that they have learned to see reality more clearly?

To what extent do their “issues” remain firmly in place? The book presumes a strong relationship between early childhood experience and adult life. Do you notice events in the adult lives of Leo and Mack that recapitulate the events of their early lives in any way?

Leo is a character that is saddled with guilt and shame. How might his father’s death play into those guilt feelings? Why do people experience “survivor guilt” when someone they love dies?

A great deal of the events of the novel are completely outside the control of the main characters. How do they come to terms with those forces that are bigger than they are? Is anything under their control? What? Do they learn to master anything that was previously outside their control?

What do you make of the Ovid quote in the beginning?

In what way is Leo like a phoenix born from his father’s ashes?

Weblinks

»	Author Austin Ratner's web site
»	Playlist for In the Land of the Living from Largehearted Boy
»	Publisher's Web Site
»	NYT profile of Austin Ratner

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