Maybe it is the nostalgic mood I have found myself in lately, but
Stewart O'Nan's WISH YOU WERE HERE struck a chord with me --- a
very familiar, familial chord.

WISH YOU WERE HERE is the story of three generations of Maxwells
vacationing together for one final time in the their Lake
Chautauqua summer cottage. It is a year since the death of Henry
Maxwell, the family patriarch, and Emily, his widow, has gathered
the family to divvy up the household belongings before selling the
beloved summer retreat. In her company is Arlene, Henry's spinster
sister, who misses her brother perhaps even more than his own wife
does. Emily and Henry's son Ken, a novice photographer, has brought
along his jealous often sullen wife Lisa and their children ---
Sam, who has a penchant for stealing small pocket-sized items, and
Ella, who is struggling with her budding sexuality. Emily's other
child Meg is headed for divorce and is fighting alcoholism while
raising a squeamish Justin and the family ingénue, Sarah. They
are a motley group, bound in a battle against oppressive weather of
both the natural and the emotional kind. I have taken this family
vacation, and O'Nan's descriptions of the sibling attachments,
teenage angst, and paternal protectiveness are dead on...dead on
descriptions of every family.

O'Nan expertly gives us the voices of each character, their desires
and deeds, their laments and longings, their reactions and
realities. Each is beautifully drawn out in their subtle
complexities. The reader is made privy to their vulnerabilities and
their most secret of secrets as each whispers private thoughts or
recalls long-tucked away memories of former lives and loves. I
can't recall the last time I read a book that so fully revealed to
me the very heart and soul of each character as if they were
members of my own family and I was, after many years, many
interactions, just now seeing who they truly are and what moves
them. Their unique perspectives filter one decision --- the choice
to sell the house and the memories of father and family that it
represents --- and we see clearly the profound affect this decision
is having on each one, from the youngest to the oldest. In seven
days the book witnesses several lifetimes.

We all own possessions; we all value them. O'Nan poses the question
"where does the 'thing' end and the attachment begin"? Emily, the
mother, would have us believe, in her not so convincing stoicism,
that she would not "miss the Old Westinghouse with its
untrustworthy burners, the clock that hadn't worked since the
mid-seventies, the broiler that cut out without warning." I was not
convinced of her detachment, and this is exactly what O'Nan wants
us to see. How can one not miss something that one has achieved
such a high level of intimacy with? She did not fool me. Ken,
surveying the room he has slept in each summer since his childhood,
thought, "The room was so full of history he had to fend it off."
He tries to employ a defense mechanism but in the end he cannot
detach from his past. Emily would define the family's dilemma: Time
was not a circle or a line, but a kitchen, a lamp, an armchair. The
things we surround ourselves with carry our stories, our histories.
And finally, near the end of the week, Emily admits to herself,
"she would miss this place, it was that simple."

WISH YOU WERE HERE celebrates all ages as it delves into a family
treasure trove of remembrances, as it collects the family legacies
to parcel out amongst the remaining living members, and as it
recollects the tales that have brought them to this point in their
conjoined lives. It is an all-too-familiar and exquisitely poignant
reflection on themes we have all encountered or will encounter in
our own lives and our own clans.