What the Family Needed: A Novel
Amsterdam’s highly praised collection of stories, Things We Didn’t See Coming (2011), sensitively described the dilemmas facing ordinary yet vividly realized characters at the onset of an apocalyptic future. In his latest work, Amsterdam brings the same refined prose and resourceful imagination to the story of an extended family whose members, one by one, unaccountably discover they have superpowers. In each case the revelation is preceded by troublesome discord with a parent or child. For 15-year-old Giordana, the talent is invisibility and the catalyst is her parents’ split-up and her move with her mother and brother to her crowded aunt and uncle’s house. For Giordana’s aunt Natalie, it’s the ability to swim almost nonstop with Olympic athleticism, a gift mysteriously bestowed when her son, Alek, refuses to communicate with her. Other powers include, for her brother, Ben, flying like a bird; for her mother, Ruth, mind reading; and for her cousin Sasha, love-at-first-sight matchmaking. Amsterdam’s juxtaposition of psychological insight with fantasy motifs makes him hard to categorize, but his storytelling prowess makes for riveting reading. --Carl Hays