cover image Lisa, Lisa

Lisa, Lisa

Beatrice Shalit. Ballantine Books, $8 (233pp) ISBN 978-0-345-37339-7

This is a story of a misguided but well-intentioned family's rite of passage during a weekend at a chateau in the French countryside, ostensibly for a wedding. The tale, Shalit's first published in English, has three narrators: Sarah, a writer; Luc, her estranged, frustrated husband; and Jose, their adolescent son, who pretends to be a heroin addict to distract Sarah from her father Leo's impending death from cancer. Quirky characterization is Shalit's strongest suit, and she accomplishes it through the various minidramas that unfold in every corner of the house. Leo pines for the wife who left him, not knowing that she has come to France from Chicago to see the family. Though Shalit's observations about family relations or lack thereof are often funny, uplifting and wise, she does not fully explore her characters' deeper motivations, especially those of Sarah's free-spirited sister, Lisa, who remains peripheral despite being the title character. Though each narrative voice is distinct, the translation has these French protagonists use English-language expressions that seem out of character, such as ``chatty as a parrot'' or ``looking chipper.'' (Aug.)