If you're looking to commiserate with somebody else whose life is not going as planned, This Is Where I Leave You might be the audiobook for you. At the same time, the humor in the story will lift your spirits and make you glad you listened.
Judd Foxman has been dealt some bad news. First, he finds out his wife is having an affair with his boss. Then he's told his father has passed away. When Judd attends his father's funeral, he discovers his Dad's last wish was for his family members to observe Shiva, a Jewish family custom of mourning together for one week. While many families could endure this, Judd's dysfunctional family hasn't been together in a long time, let alone for a whole week. So Judd spends a week with his mother, who is a sex therapist, two brothers (one of whom is married to an ex-girlfriend) and his sister.
As the week passes, Judd tries to deal with his wife's infidelity while being stuck with his family. As they mourn their father, they reminisce about the past, deal with issues, argue, fight, and forgive. For good measure, there are several laughs along the way.
Jonathan Tropper was born in the New York City area. After receiving a Master's degree from New York University in Creative Writing, he worked in a different field and pursued his writing on his own time. His first, book, Plan B was published in 2000. He writes about many of his own experiences, and Westchester County is still the setting for many of his stories.
"This book will break your heart even while you are laughing out loud. Judd Foxman's father has died and, apparently, one of his last wishes was for his non-observant Jewish family to sit a seven day shiva for him. Only one member of the family will be absent--Judd's wife Jen. Judd recently arrived home early on Jen's birthday to surprise her and he received the surprise of his life. Jen and Judd's boss--a Howard Stern-type radio personality--were in bed together causing Judd to act inappropriately with a lighted birthday cheesecake and to walk out of his marriage. And now Judd has to go to his childhood home alone to face this 7 day mourning period causing him to muse, "You get married to have an ally against your family and now I'm marching into the trenches alone". And what a family it is. Twenty-five years earlier his mother wrote a book about parenting called "Cradle and All: A Mother's Guide to Enlightened Parenting" that became a national best-seller and making his mother a celebrity expert on raising children. Since she used the experiences she had with her four children and used their real names in her book, Judd admits that "predictably, my siblings and I were screwed up beyond repair". His elder brother lost an athletic scholarship to college because of an accident and works with his father, his sister is in a loveless, but profitable marriage, and his younger brother, who has been in one unsavory incident after another, shows up with a woman 20 years older than himself and announces that they are engaged. Very quickly, this forced togetherness causes old relationships, resentments, and alliances to surface among the siblings. Or as Judd puts it, "It becomes clear to me that the reason for filling the shiva house with visitors is most likely to prevent the mourners from tearing each other limb from limb". An engaging story of family dynamics told, refreshingly, from the male point of view."
—
Judy (4 out of 5 stars)