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The War for Gloria (2022)

by Atticus Lish

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873312,629 (4)None
"From the author of the PEN/Faulkner winning debut novel Preparation for the Next Life--a searing, tender, haunting story about fathers and sons, sons and mothers, and a young boy's struggle to become a man. Corey Goltz is fifteen years old when his mother, Gloria, is diagnosed with ALS. Estranged from his father, and increasingly responsible for meeting both his mother's needs and his own, Corey is determined to be the hero Gloria needs --at any cost. But when his father Leonard re-enters the picture, Corey's beliefs--about honor and love, duty and devotion, and the uses and misuses of power--are sorely tested. Charismatic and cruel, Leonard is a man of outsize influence and dubious moral character, a man whose neglect of his wife and son amounts to a kind of barbarism. The closer Corey gets to understanding his father's role in their family, the closer he comes to unmasking a violence that is beyond even his worst imaginings. Set against the backdrop of a small town in Massachusetts in the early 2000s, where the working class world collides with the professional and academic worlds of nearby Boston and Cambridge, The War For Gloria tells the story of a young man straddling childhood and adulthood, whose yearning to protect his mother requires him to dismantle the myth of--and possibly destroy--his father. A gripping, indelible work from a fearless new voice in American fiction"--… (more)
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This slice-of-life seems autobiographical, so persuasive that this Boston-area family existed, and still exists, in many other times and places. But here, it's Quincy, MA, in the early 2000s, when it was not the home of many Asian immigrants, but a white working class first ring Boston suburb, where Gloria Goltz lands, a single mom with her young son Corey, after leading the drifting hippie life in Cambridge and environs. She falls in love with Leonard, who has some vague association with MIT and talks a good physics game. He is deliberately detached, often times cruel, and Gloria raises Corey on her own, until she develops ALS when Corey is in high school. Her descent into paralysis and Corey's confusion about his goals (apply to MIT? become a MMA fighter? work construction? enlist?) narrows into caring for Gloria. Leonard reappears, with disastrous results, and Gloria's ex-lover Joan joins them for a year as a caring angel. But others who are pulled into the Goltz orbit are destroyed. As told mostly by Corey, this is an American tragedy with no one blameless, and no one specific event or person to blame, except for cruel fate. It’s absorbing and memorable. ( )
  froxgirl | Oct 20, 2021 |
I only finished this book because I felt I needed to read it in its entirety to write a review. It seemed like an editor’s red pen could have been used more. Lots of violence, too much for me, is one of the reasons it isn’t a book I can recommend to readers who follow me. The strength of the book is in the complex characters. I empathized with Corey. He, as a boy and young man trying to navigate life without much adult supervision, was continually challenged to make choices that would guide his life.
  brangwinn | Sep 18, 2021 |
I had to keep flipping the book over to reread the reviews on the back. "Searing, tender, engrossing" story. I didn't see any of that. Didn't read any of that in here. I was just glad to finish it!

I received a copy from Goodreads for my review. ( )
  juju2cat | Aug 28, 2021 |
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"From the author of the PEN/Faulkner winning debut novel Preparation for the Next Life--a searing, tender, haunting story about fathers and sons, sons and mothers, and a young boy's struggle to become a man. Corey Goltz is fifteen years old when his mother, Gloria, is diagnosed with ALS. Estranged from his father, and increasingly responsible for meeting both his mother's needs and his own, Corey is determined to be the hero Gloria needs --at any cost. But when his father Leonard re-enters the picture, Corey's beliefs--about honor and love, duty and devotion, and the uses and misuses of power--are sorely tested. Charismatic and cruel, Leonard is a man of outsize influence and dubious moral character, a man whose neglect of his wife and son amounts to a kind of barbarism. The closer Corey gets to understanding his father's role in their family, the closer he comes to unmasking a violence that is beyond even his worst imaginings. Set against the backdrop of a small town in Massachusetts in the early 2000s, where the working class world collides with the professional and academic worlds of nearby Boston and Cambridge, The War For Gloria tells the story of a young man straddling childhood and adulthood, whose yearning to protect his mother requires him to dismantle the myth of--and possibly destroy--his father. A gripping, indelible work from a fearless new voice in American fiction"--

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