The back cover of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty asks, why do we fall in love with the people we do? My question would be, why do we fall in love with the Belsey’s, a family so dysfunctional it could only be love that keeps them together and holds the reader right there, in their kitchen. The family’s ongoing feud with the Kippses provides fodder for a tremendously good satire. I’ve had On Beauty beside me on my desk for well over a year as I’ve completed the second and third drafts of my first effort manuscript, a humorous cozy crime novel. When I need inspiration, which is often, I grab Smith’s shining example, open it to a random page, and read. If you’re smitten by stellar character driven fiction this is one you’ll want to read.

At the outset, the Belsey family is arguing over what is surely a breakfast scene that has played out countless times in their lives together. But this particular morning they are reading emails from an absent son. One wonders why Howard, a seemingly loving father would have such disregard for his son’s needs. Indeed one wonders this throughout. But somehow my own fondness for the pompous middle aged man in black jeans grew and by the end I found myself rooting for him, looking beyond one bad decision after another, and indeed hoping for the entire lot of them to continue to find ways to hold their quirky family together. 

Kiki, fiercely determined to keep her children from going off the rails finds herself wondering how she could be so in love with Howard. On the occasion of their wedding anniversary she thinks:

“…with her eyes closed, and with his hair escaping her fingers, they could have been standing in any happy day of any of these thirty years. Kiki was not a fool and recognized the feeling for what it was: a dumb wish to go backwards.”

Howard, too, is trying. Because he loves Kiki. Later in the story:

“Howard stood and went over to the drinks cabinet by the stereo. He opened the little door and turned to see Kiki standing. He looked at her pleadingly. She sighed and sat down. Howard brought over a bottle of amaretto and two brandy glasses. It was a drink Kiki loved, and she inclined her head in grudging admission of a good choice.”

And yet there he is again. One too many drinks. One more devastating decision and the little ground he has gained is lost.

Told from a rotating point of view we hear from each of the family members who, as people do, focus mainly on their own places in the messy drama that is daily life in the Belsey household. Zora, like her happily self-centered twenty-something brothers, lives in her own world. But those worlds also connect and when the siblings find themselves in a chance encounter, ostensibly delivered on the wind, they marvel at the sight of one another.

“It was freezing; the wind enough to upend a small child. They should all have gone inside somewhere and had coffee, but to leave the spot would have been to abandon the miracle of it, and they weren’t quite ready to do that.“

The poignancy of the moment for Kiki, sitting in her far away office and looped in by phone by three children eager to share the chance encounter was less enthusiastic.

“Kiki grinned into the mouthpiece, but real enthusiasm failed her. There was a residual melancholy connected to the thought of these three newly coined adults walking freely about the world without her assistance, open to its magic and beauty, available for unusual experiences and not, explicitly not, typing doctor’s notes into the Beecham Urology Ward’s patient records.“

As a mother I can appreciate Kiki’s fierce loyalty to her family and yet I also feel the pain of her position as family matriarch. While appearing to be a thankless job, it’s so much more. With each shattering of her heart, her love expands. For family.

This book will appeal to readers and writers alike. It’s a book that requires commitment from the reader, not only to the beautiful prose, but to the characters who will draw you into their lives and keep you there long after you’re done reading the book. And for writers, particularly emerging writers like myself, you won’t go wrong keeping this one un-shelved.

Here’s one for you. It’s a good read. I promise. Especially if you’re a teacher, policy maker, scholar or just generally interested in education and you’re looking for a fresh, objective viewpoint on schooling for kids who have fallen through the cracks of the public system. I talked to lots of kids in an urban Edmonton high school, including a number of Indigenous youth. What I discovered was their experiences, needs and personalities. Turns out they’re interesting and had a lot a lot to say about what type of pedagogy works for them. Good thing they’re in a school that listens.

Here’s what a few others had to say:

At a time when high school completion, high school success, and student engagement are foremost on the agenda of most provincial governments and school jurisdictions, Wishart’s book serves as another reminder that those we single out as the most deficient, the most oppressed, have the potential to inform us of the changes needed to create an education system for today’s world. Sharon Friesen, Education Canada, 2010, Vol. 50 (5)

There aren’t enough people raising the issues that this book raises.  Perhaps we shy away from difficult topics too often, but not Wishart, who titles one of her concluding sections “Disrupting the Status Quo Through Uncomfortable Conversations.”  Our education system and our society would benefit from being disrupted more often by uncomfortable conversations that force us to look at old concerns from new perspectives.  We might even develop an educational philosophy that, in Wishart’s words, “…moves beyond the type of schooling that leads to people acquiring power and material wealth to people who want to question what constitutes the public good” (p.145). Kevin Taft, MLA Edmonton Riverview, January 2010

This book is heavy reading but it does contain fresh ideas for change in our efforts at dealing with issues surrounding at risk teens including a goodly number of Aboriginal youth. The author’s analysis is a starting point for concerned educators. It should be a useful text for lawyers practicing in custody matters in the marital law field. Ron MacIsaac, The Saskatchewan Advocate, December 2009

The Rose that Grew from Concrete exemplifies how teachers learn from their students – learn to work together, to listen, to adapt, and to connect. Paula E. Kirman, Prairie Books Now, Fall/Winter 2009