The Only True Genius in the Family by Jennie Nash 

Release date: 2009 / 283 pages

Synopsis (from back cover): Claire’s father always said that in their family, genius skipped a generation.  Maybe he was right.  The daughter of a legendary landscape photographer and the mother of a painter whose career is about to take off, Claire has carved out a practical living as a commercial photographer.  It may not earn her glory, but it’s paid for a good life in a beautiful house on the beach.  When her father suddenly dies, Claire loses faith in the work she has devoted her life to — and worse, begins to feel jealous of her daughter’s success.  But as she helps prepare a retrospective of her famous father’s photographs, Claire uncovers revelations about him that change everything she believes about herself as a mother, a daughter, and an artist…

First line: “My dad died at an incredibly inconvenient time, and I have no doubt that he planned it that way on purpose.”

Review: I absolutely enjoyed this novel and recommend it to anyone who enjoys hero journeys or well-written character sketches.

The narrator and protagonist, Claire, is flawed but credible.  She experiences a very complicated grief when she loses her father — a famous photographer who devoted his life solely to his art, to the exclusion of everything and everyone else.

Claire struggles with her own role as a photographer and believes that “genius” means “easy” art.  She mythologizes the gifts of her father and daughter until she stymies her own talents.  At this point, she comes to realize just how hard her father worked at his own art and this releases her own abilities.

Now, I have not “spoiled” anything in this novel, because the heart of it is not in the plot.  The true gift of this novel is in the writing — lyrical, imagistic, fluid.  We like Claire despite her faults and love her husband for loving his wife enough to be honest:

“He loved you the best way he knew how, Claire.  That’s what we all do.  He was a complicated and difficult guy who didn’t have a lot of interest in sticking around and didn’t have a lot of patience.  But neither did my dad, and neither do a lot of other dads.  You’re fifty-four years old.  I think it’s time to get over it.” (124)

When Harrison tells Claire the above passage, I couldn’t help but think “Way to go, Harrison!  Way to love her!” 

My only reservation was that I really didn’t care for Claire’s daughter, who seemed to be selfish and inconsiderate at times.  But that may have been intentional since she was so much closer to her irascible grandfather than Claire was.

I am so happy to pass this one on to happy reader!  It is a true page-turning delight that begs to be shared…  Interested?  Leave me a comment and I will choose a winner!

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