Introduction

In Tracy Barone's mordantly funny debut, a fiercely independent woman is forced to come to terms with the family who raised her, the one who gave her away and the one she desperately wants.

Trenton, New Jersey, 1962: A pregnant girl staggers into a health clinic, gives birth, and flees. A foster family takes the baby in, and an unlikely couple, their lives unspooling from a recent tragedy, hastily adopts her.

Forty years and many secrets and lies later, Cheri Matzner is all grown up and falling apart. Ironic and unapologetic, she's a former cop-turned-disgruntled academic, a frustrated wife trying to get pregnant, an iconoclastic daughter bearing war-wounds from her overbearing mother and the deeply flawed by well-meaning father who has been dead for several years. Thrust into an odyssey of acceptance, Cheri discovers that sometimes it takes half a lifetime to come of age.

Written with a deep emotional intelligence and a biting wit, HAPPY FAMILY weaves together the stories of the beautifully damaged people who have shaped Cheri's life--often in ways she has yet to discover. Asking if we can ever really know our parents outside their roles as our parents, Barone brilliantly explores the often vast divide between our beliefs about our families and the truth.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1 – Miriam


The pregnant girl enters the Trenton Family Clinic, looking like she parted the Red Sea to get there. The lower half of her dress is wet with amniotic fluid, and the upper half is streaked with sweat. She stands, shifting her weight from foot to foot, in the waiting room near the check-in window. She breathes in quick, sharp breaths; no identification, no insurance card. The entire contents of her plastic purse: one dollar and thirty-nine cents, half a roll of Necco wafers, a chewed pencil, and a handshaped pendant with an eye in its center. She’s sixteen or seventeen, with white-white skin and black hair. She smells like tobacco and spices that don’t come in tins at the Stop and Shop. A jolt of pain makes her feel like her flesh is being stripped from her bones. “Hey.” She pants, gripping the ledge of the window. “Hey, somebody.” ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Compare the Cheri we meet at the beginning of the novel to the Cheri we come to know by the end. Has she undergone significant personal changes over the course of the novel?

2. Did you find Cheri to be a sympathetic character? Why or why not? Is your enjoyment of a novel affected by the likeability of its protagonist? Why do you think so many readers expect protagonists—especially female protagonists—to be likeable?

3. Several times in the novel, Cheri realizes she hasn’t really “seen” the people she is closest to. Do you think she always “sees” herself? In what ways do her perceptions of her family members hinder her real understanding of them? Have you ever realized that your perceptions of someone have prevented you from really “seeing” them?

4. Despite his flaws, did you find Sol to be a sympathetic character? What did you make of his decision to surprise Cici with baby Cheri?

5. At the end of the novel, we find out that Cheri eventually has a baby of her own. What type of parent do you think she will be? Do you think her parenting style will be influenced by the way she was raised? If you have children of your own, was your parenting style influenced by the way you were raised? Did you actively try to raise your children differently from the way that your parents raised you?

6. What did you make of Cheri’s decision not to tell Cici about Sol’s affair? What would you have done if you were in her shoes?

7. On page 275, Dr. Vega says to Cheri: “We can look at everything we go through without judging it as good or bad, but as an opportunity for growth.” Do you agree with this statement?

8. Discuss the role that forgiveness—both forgiveness of others and of ourselves--plays in the novel.

9. Near the end of the novel, Cheri refers to herself as “the sum of her secrets.” What does that mean? Are you the sum of your secrets?

10. If you could, would you know the “whole story” of your family, or are some things better left unknown? Looking back, are there things about your family you wish your parents had told you, or told you sooner? Do you understand why they may have waited to disclose certain facts? Are there “family secrets” you’ll hide from your children?

11. One of the novel’s central questions is: can we ever see our parents outside of their roles as our parents. Do you think that’s possible? Or can we only start to do this once we have children of our own?

12. Cheri talks to her therapist about having a “shadow” child growing up. Discuss the idea of shadow children, or shadow families, either through death, adoption where the child doesn’t know his or her birth parent, even a projection of the family we wished we had. Do you have a shadow family?

13. Just as Cheri is about to leave Michael she glimpse the man she fell in love with. Do you think an extreme circumstance such as being diagnosed with terminal cancer can bring about major shifts in relationship? What other kinds of crisis can bring us back to finding an ember in ashes?

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