Blame

"In her earlier novels, Michelle Huneven, the respected California writer, has been concerned with matters of Alcoholics Anonymous, transgression and forgiveness, but most of all with the construction of ad hoc families, the putting together of disparate groups of people who can trust each other, meet each other's needs. It's an extremely topical idea, given the American divorce rate and the growing gap between generations. If your conventional family frays beyond recognition, certainly a wise thing to do is to put together another one. Sometimes it works and, of course, sometimes it doesn't. Blame is set mainly in the towns of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge . . . settlements established in the early 20th century by wealthy Easterners who came to the Edenic climate and verdant landscape to build elegant winter homes and loved the place so much that they stayed year-round. But many of those fine old families lost some of their money and their focus during the following decades . . . Huneven focuses not just on the decay of individual families but on the fatal fraying of a painstakingly put-together society. These entitled communities have the Rose Bowl, sure, and the Valley Hunt Club, but their distinguishing landmark is the aptly named Suicide Bridge. Death permeates Blame. The beginning of this lovely novel shows us Joey, a lost little girl roaming an elegant hotel that houses an exclusive private club. Joey has been pulled out of school by her handsome, glamorous Uncle Brice, who has no idea what to do with her. Brice's sister, Joey's mother, is dying of cancer, but Brice is absolutely not up to the task of being responsible, caring, reasonable—whatever the occasion might require. Instead, he shows up at the hotel with one of his girlfriends, Patsy, who plies Joey with drinks and pills and later on pierces Joey's ears, crookedly. A few months later, Patsy wakes up in jail. She's already had a few DUIs; she prides herself on the fact that she's not only a young and brilliant college professor but also a dedicated party girl. Although she teases her jailers for being unnecessarily grim, she's in big trouble this time. It seems that she took her car out—even though her license had been revoked -- and managed to run over a mother and daughter in her own driveway. So, yes, Patsy is pretty and smart, but now she's a murderer. Even with a diligent lawyer, she draws four years behind bars. The learned young professor and bon vivant has no idea how to live her new life. Her fellow inmates are, by and large, mean-tempered or crazy. It takes a while for her to make any friends, and a longer time than that to be lured into her first AA meeting. At this point, almost the only thing that makes Patsy sadder than having killed two people (which she can't remember; she was in one of her many blackouts) is the idea of giving up drinking—the whole, murky, golden party of it. But she goes to the meetings. Her visitors are few, except for the wildly handsome Brice, who turns out to be a loyal friend. When she gets out—fragile, changed and sober—she falls in love with Cal, an impressive older man she meets at an AA meeting. Eventually, Patsy marries him, maybe because she craves security and meaning, maybe because she has a desperate need to atone for what she's done—to be good. She and Cal buy a large family home, suitable for taking in down-and-out drunks and sundry relatives who find themselves in trouble. Patsy succeeds; she does good in the world. But then Patsy learns the truth about the crime she has spent her life atoning for. And since years have passed, the handsome, wise, compassionate Cal has turned into a very old man. Patsy has had one family (her own), then the AA group, but now, maybe, another whole family is in order. How do you build lasting relationships when the world insists on crumbling around you? That's Huneven's theme here, and she does a lovely job with it."—Carolyn See, The Washington Post

"Huneven makes Patsy's story unfold like a thriller, creating a sense of urgency and mystery even about everyday matters . . . The novel is firmly rooted in the moral ambiguities of addiction and recovery, probing responsibility, guilt and exoneration with a philosophical elegance. Huneven's prose moves like a hummingbird, in small bursts that are improbably fast and graceful."—Maria Russo, The New York Times Book Review

"We first see the heroine—and she truly becomes one over the course of Blame—through the eyes of 12-year-old Joey, who is bedazzled by her glamorous uncle Brice and his tall, blond girlfriend Patsy MacLemoore, who's drunk (as usual) when she gives the girl a beer and botches an attempt to pierce her ears. A year later, in May 1981, Patsy awakens from a blackout in a California jail. The sheriff tells her that while turning too quickly into her driveway the night before, she mowed down a mother and her young daughter who were passing out Jehovah's Witnesses literature. Because the deaths occurred on private property, she is allowed to plead guilty to criminal negligence instead of manslaughter, which she readily does, remembering absolutely nothing. The brilliant, beautiful PhD and college history professor finds herself, at the age of 29, sentenced to four years in a women's penitentiary. Huneven does a masterful job of describing the tedious, stressful and at times dangerous conditions Patsy endures amid arsonists, armed robbers and murderers. She stands up to bullies, endures the brutal whims of guards and makes enduring friends. She had heard that in prison there was time 'to read, write, make yourself into a lawyer. Nobody mentioned that the time was filled with the ambient sounds of women raging, gates clanging, an ever-crackling public-address system' . . . When she is sprung to freedom, Patsy feels like an alien in a mostly sober society. She'd been a boozer since the age of 13: doing homework drunk, writing her dissertation drunk, teaching drunk, picking up men in bars, drunk. Now she learns just how taxing normalcy is, never having experienced it before. Huneven makes an astute observation when she has Patsy, at a dinner party, marveling over how slowly people sipped their wine. She makes a resolution 'to be good, whatever that meant. Her soul, that scrap of energy, was in tatters, no doubt beyond repair. Her only hope was to make herself useful to others, try to balance wrong with right' . . . The 20-some years after prison are decent, uneventful ones, but beautifully rendered as Huneven delves into Patsy's moral struggles and her deepening relationships. The most complex bond is the one she forges with Cal Sharp, 35 years older but a charismatic, revered mentor in AA circles . . . When we leave Patsy, she has left the house to her bossy stepdaughter-in-law and her family, looked with sorrow at her doddering husband asleep in front of the television and moved out to a little private hideaway, pondering her revised past and her uncertain future. The satisfactions Blame offers readers are elegant prose and, deeper than that aesthetic pleasure, the intelligence and compassion Huneven brings to her characters. She holds them all with the utmost tenderness."—Brigitte Frase, Los Angeles Times

"Sly yet openhearted, Michelle Huneven's Blame takes on the recovery movement in this novel about Patsy MacLemoore, a slightly wild, 20-something history professor involved in an alcohol-related crime. All too flawed, Patsy eventually finds redemption, only to wind up questioning her hard-won moral certainties later on. Think The Good Mother or House of Sand and Fog: It's that good."—O, The Oprah Magazine

"A coming-of-age book, [Blame] explores not the short spring from adolescence into early adulthood, but the patchy, winding path to maturity of a woman who is 29 when the two-decade-long story begins. A social novel, it captures the climate of the times, while probing bedrock questions: how to be good, how to atone for egregious wrongdoing. And it is a literary novel, with nimble prose, fully developed characters and emotion achieved not on the cheap but through an unsentimental, unblinking outlook . . . In describing AA meetings and therapy sessions, Huneven risks devolving into platitudes. But she doesn't go that far, relying instead on her intelligence, her nuanced view of the world and her honesty. The novelist also doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue, which gives her prose a dreamlike, luminous depth . . . An earth-shattering plot development, as anticipated as it is surprising, arrives late in the novel, and Patsy must rethink everything. As the old saying goes, there's always plenty of blame to go around, and blame here is parsed with exquisite nuance. Blame is finally a novel of agency and autonomy as well as atonement . . . Smart observations, generously realized characters (both central and secondary), and resonant details."—Jeffrey Ann Goudie, The Kansas City Star

"Full of an astonishing sense of the beauty of the world, the inestimable complexity of moral consequences, and the bright pleasures of Huneven's prose. Read it."—Roxana Robinson, author of Cost

"In Blame, a guilty protagonist strives for the good and achieves the beautiful—and, eventually, the truth. Huneven's supple, world-loving prose elevates small gestures into redemptive acts and everyday objects into restorative gifts, rewarding the reader on every page."—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black

"Huneven's elegant third novel probes some deep questions: What does it mean to be good? Is it possible to atone for terrible transgressions? If so, how? Patsy is an intelligent, honest heroine, and her guilt and pain are palpable. Huneven skillfully leads Patsy on the long and winding road to self-discovery and maturity over the course of 20 years, and critics praised Huneven's supple prose and nuanced view of the world . . . Blame is a sensitive and insightful novel of recovery and redemption."—BookMarks magazine

"Huneven tracks a 20-year-old burden of guilt with supple technique. Alcoholism and integrity drive her novel, which is narrated with flashes of irony, appealing warmth and dry judgment . . . Grace, insight and seemingly effortless narration distract from the odd pacing and sometimes meandering progress of this empathetic tale."—Kirkus Reviews

"Huneven turns complicated moral issues into utterly riveting reading in this beautifully written story of remorse and redemption."—Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist (starred review)

"Patsy's sober life is carefully unfurled—new connections forged, old relationships changed, a constant background of remorse and shame."—Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton Public Library, Massachusetts, Library Journal

"Brilliant observations, excellent characters, spiffy dialogue and a clever plot keep readers hooked, and the final twist turns Patsy's new life on its ear. Huneven's exploration of misdeeds real and imagined is humane, insightful and beautiful."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This book is a pleasure, on every level."—Sue Miler, Bookforum