This Is The Last…

I just finished reading A Family Daughter a wonderfully written novel by the sister of the Decemberists’ front man Colin Meloy. Everyone knows that Colin was a literature major in college and he wrote a 33 1/3 book about the Replacements, so its no surprise that his sister would be an interesting writer. So last week while Jason and I were at Barnes and Noble I picked up and started reading it. I finished in 2 days! From the moment I picked up this book, I was engrossed by the characters.

The book is a story about three generations of a family. The story is mainly about Abby, the granddaughter of the Santerre family. At the beginning of the story Abby is a little girl, stuck in the her grandparents’ house with chicken pox and boredom. Her parents are going through a divorce, and her mother is trying to find herself. Her cool uncle Jamie drives down from college, to be with Abby and cheer her up. The book flashes forward and Abby is 21. She has a a major tragedy happen in her life and she is torn apart by grief.

Each chapter is told from a different family member’s perspective. The story has death, sex, an affair, a foreign rich girl, an adopted son, an ex-russian prostitute, and a reunion of old highschool sweethearts. The book is a bit steamy, and there was one scene that I was like… what the hell? Aside from that, this was a very well-written book. I definitely want to pick up another of Meloy’s books.

After reading the book I found out that A Family Daughter is actually a sequel to Meloy’s earlier book Liars and Saints. So if you were interested in her writing, you might want to pick that one up first.

I came across a pretty good, old interview with Colin Meloy in Believer Magazine. Its really interesting, even if it is from June of 2004. There’s some really interesting bits about how his relationship with his sister affected his writing. You can read it here.