“All This Could Be Yours” by Jami Attenberg – Webs of a Toxic Household

Jami Attenberg didn't need to write many novels to gain a considerable amount of attention from the literary community for her insightful perception of family and human relations.

In All This Could Be Yours, she tells the story of Alex Tuchman, a mother and a lawyer, who tries to unearth the truth about her father who is now on his deathbed. By all accounts he was a bad man, but Alex wants to know it beyond all doubt, and this will require her to pry loose her tight-lipped mother in New Orleans.

Jami Attenberg Observes a Crumbling Family

The past dictates the future, and no matter how much we try to move forward independently of what we did before, we are still bound by the consequences of not only our actions, but also those of people who came before us, to an extent at least. In some cases, people are even bound by a family history which they might not necessarily be related to; while the descendants of dictators and generally-despised people may have never even known them, they are still chained to their history. It's definitely not an easy life, as Alex Tuchman finds out in Jami Attenberg's All This Could Be Yours.

The story begins by presenting us with Alex, a proud mother, sister and an accomplished lawyer in her own right, she carved her way through life with her own two hands. However, no matter how much she might have achieved, she is always being eaten away by the question as to why she is the way she is... and she comes to the conclusion the answer may lie in understanding her parents. Her father Victor is now on his deathbed, and she sees this as the opportunity to truly unveil what lay beneath his reputation as an absolutely terrible man.

Naturally she cannot do it alone, and so travels to New Orleans in hopes of interrogating her mother rather secretive mother and pry loose from her the secrets she has been keeping in the darkness. Meanwhile, Alex' brother Gary seems to have dropped out of existence for her, allegedly trying to get his movie career started in Los Angeles... all while his wife is suffering a nervous breakdown, manifested by her incessant purchase of lipstick and crying outbursts. The family may not realize it, but even now Victor's history has its clutches in them, and they will have to find a way to move forward from it, if not for themselves, then at least for their children and the future generations.

Victor's Circle of Pain

As you might have gathered from the description of the story so far, this is largely a character study centred on a dysfunctional family falling apart at the seams, and at the centre of it all is the vicious circle of pain caused by Victor's criminal activities and infidelities. Much of the plot is dedicated to slowly unravelling Victor's past, learning about his mistakes, his reasoning for them, and the ultimate effects they had and still have on the rest of the family.

When we begin the story, at least in my case, the family simply seemed disjointed and out of love with each other, seemingly comprised from the type of people who don't care much about anyone other than themselves. This was even reinforced by the fact no one in the family seemed to care when Victor had his heart attack and ended up in the hospital. However, Attenberg slowly brings a different context and colour to it all by taking us to the depths of Victor's transgressions. Over the course of the book my opinion on the family kept evolving, becoming further and further removed from my original impression. Eventually, Alex and Gary seem like innocent victims caught up in someone else' maelstrom, with a very good reason to have disdain for their parents.

The author placed an extremely strong emphasis throughout the story on the way in which Victor's actions had repercussions on his children many years down the line, and I must say, this isn't exactly the happiest of reading materials. There are very few, if any real redeeming moments for his character, and there is a lot of pain to go around between the family members, more than enough to spill through the page and into the reader's mind.

The Sinking Ship

While I am not familiar with Attenberg's other novels (for now at least), I can definitely say she has either an innate or developed proficiency for exploring a family whose ship is sinking, seemingly beyond all hope of salvage. This is most prominently displayed in her portrayal of Victor and his wife Barbara, of the extremely dysfunctional relationship which they endured over the years. Every time we meet either of them an atmosphere of ultimate unpleasantness takes over the entire scene, and with every encounter we are reminded there will never be any justice for the things they have done decades ago.

With this being said, I don't want to give the impression there is nothing but darkness and sadness to be found in this novel, for Alex and Gary carry with them the fire of a new hope, a light which might illuminate the future of the family. As much as their parents are despicable, the siblings are likeable and we can rather easily root for them, especially as we learn more and more about the pain they have been made to endure in the past. As slowly as their family fell apart over the years, they are intent on rebuilding something new from the ashes of the past.

I'd say the characters are by far the strongest aspect of this book, being all fully-fleshed out and possibly more profound than the majority of real people. In the end, when I looked back on all I had learned about the family and its members, it occurred to me few things were actually in black-and-white, and even the worst of them could be understood from a logical perspective. Even though we hate certain characters, we still yearn to see more of them and I simply had felt like I had to know what would happen to all of them by the end of it.

The Final Verdict

All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg is an expertly-crafted and profound exploration of a family deeply affected by one man's vile toxicity, the journey of the children to uncover the painful truth and build a new, better future for themselves. If you enjoy character studies set around a crumbling and ruined household, then I can safely say you'll very much appreciate this bittersweet ride.

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Jami Attenberg Personal site Jami Attenberg is an American author and essayist hailing from Illinois who graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in writing. She worked at HBO before deciding to fully pursue writing fiction and has published numerous novels including The Middlesteins (a New York Times bestseller), Saint Mazie and All Grown Up.