Book Reviews

By Steve Mitchell

 

What binds a family together? Blood? Duty? The mysteries of the heart?

 

Ron Froehlich’s novel “No Matter the Season” explores how a tragic loss rips a family apart. Only the love of a young woman puts the pieces of the family back together again, in many ways strengthening the family bonds stronger than before.

 

When Henry’s wife Margie dies suddenly of influenza, he loses his job and drags his two boys Paul and Arthur from relative to relative across Nebraska as he seeks a fresh start. But prospects are bleak in the early 1950s and Henry can’t find a job to support his family.

 

Enter Lilly, a young woman who yearns to escape the small town life that has stifled her dreams. When an accidental fire destroys Lilly’s restaurant and bar, Henry and Lilly are thrown together. Their ill-fated affair soon fizzles, but not before outraging Henry’s oldest son Paul, who stays behind in Nebraska when Lilly leaves for California’s bright lights with Henry and his youngest son Arthur.

 

But the California dream doesn’t materialize for Henry, who leaves Arthur with Lilly, further fracturing this fragile, thrown-together family. But Lilly thrives at her new job at a talent agency, where she falls for the boss Michael. Their life together blossoms while Henry’s spirals out of control.

 

When Lilly and Michael bring Paul back into the fold and Arthur excels at prep school, their family finally seems whole again. But Henry re-enters the picture, threatening to tear the family apart with a shocking plan that draws the reader ever deeper into the story.

 

Froehlich successfully captures how the human heart can pull apart a family or bind it together. It is easy to root for Froehlich’s vivid characters in a heartfelt family saga that will stick with you long after you’ve read the last page.

 

Reviewer Steve Mitchell is the author of novels “Steve McQueen Would Be Proud” and “Throwing Grenades at Gilligan’s Island.”

 

By Kirkus Reviews

 

A tale of a 1950s American family trying to make its way in a rapidly changing world.

 

Henry is far from the best of fathers. After the death of his wife, he’s more concerned with entertaining his friends at the bar with his jokes and stories than he is with the well-beings of his two young sons, Paul and Arthur. He’s unable to find steady work and housing, so the trio makes its way to Nebraska, where Henry charms his way into the affections of a cute, young bartender. Lilly, in turn, finds that she cares more for Henry’s two boys than she anticipated, and she eventually agrees to move to Hollywood with Henry and little Arthur, while Paul, the eldest boy, stays behind to work at his stable job. While Henry spirals downward, working dead-end jobs and spending what little money he makes and borrows, Lilly sets out to improve her circumstances, finding herself a job working for a talent agency in Los Angeles.

 

As the resentment festers between Lilly and Henry, the bond between Lilly and Arthur strengthens to the point where Lilly becomes Arthur’s legal guardian. With Lilly’s marriage to Michael, the owner of the talent agency, Arthur’s life becomes one of privilege and possibility, much to Henry’s chagrin. Even Paul eventually thrives away from his father’s influence, becoming a football star, then a keen businessman. But deadbeat Henry’s criminal ways begin to infiltrate his sons’ hard-won happy existences, threatening not only their futures but their very lives.

 

Author Froehlich sketches the makeshift family’s ups and downs with compassion and ease, following each character’s development with steady pacing and intriguing details. While some may find this tale of interwoven ordinary lives a bit oversimplified, others will be drawn to the brief moments of despair and epiphany. The plot is rather quotidian and the climax, a bit melodramatic for family history, but this story of hardship and redemption still has a considerable amount of charm.