A Universal Condition

By Breanne Boland August 21, 2008 Issue

Jennifer Haigh’s strength is in building characters and families. Beyond nuanced, the people in her books nearly jump off the page. They could be the sighing person in front of you at the grocery store with the miserable slouch, or the proper, rigid older woman who looks at you disapprovingly. Throughout The Condition (HarperCollins, 390 pages), each character constantly, realistically reveals new facets of personality. Histories are illuminated, and secret ambitions surface. The internal monologues alone are engaging; when the members of the McKotch-Drew family come together, the tension is like that of any fine drama.

Unfortunately, the storyline of this book isn’t a match for the masterful character building. Haigh starts things off well enough. We first meet the five members of the centerpiece family in 1976 as they vacation in Cape Cod; it’s the last time they’ll be together for decades. Scientist Frank and homemaker Paulette bring their three children to the family’s old vacation home, the last legacy from their once-wealthy New England family. Next chapter, we’re in 1997. Frank and Paulette have long since divorced, and their three children have grown up and gone in their own directions.

The most obvious condition of the title belongs to middle child Gwen. She has Turner’s syndrome, a mutation of the X chromosome that denies her puberty, height, and the ability to have children. It’s what most of their family blames for the divorce, but naturally it isn’t that simple. Paulette clings to the lost past; Frank buries himself in his research. Oldest son Billy has a secret—albeit one that would be better suited to a book set 50 years ago. Gwen has retreated behind her syndrome, and neglected youngest son Scott has ricocheted around the country in a haze of exhaust and pot smoke.

Following the characters is a pleasure; the moments of true character study in the book are its finest. It’s when the plot decides it has to move and move now that things become clumsy. While the whole family could use some classes in communication, they sometimes hold back truths to the point of absurdity. Like easily avoided mix-ups in low-quality romantic comedies, so many of the plot-propelling conflicts could be settled if the family just opened their mouths and explained everything. Decades-long estrangements fester because people keep secrets for no reason other than it being a behavior assigned to them.

The last third of the book is particularly afflicted. After a series of improbable events, the scattered family comes back together for no clear reason other than the book needing an ending. Long-stubborn characters have convenient changes of heart and revelations, many of which have no precedence in the preceding 300-odd pages. Yes, people do change, and people do have realizations. But the emotional climax of this kind of family-saga novel requires a certain kind of justification, much of which just doesn’t exist here. Haigh does foreshadow occasionally, but it’s often clumsy, such as when 12-year-old Gwen is trying to read Little Women. Ha ha.

The Condition is worth reading, but be prepared for a bit of eye rolling as the book nears its conclusion. For such a subtle creator of characters, Haigh can be strangely heavy-handed. The book’s title is a good example. It refers to Gwen’s chromosomal syndrome, but it becomes very, very clear through the rest of the story that the characters each have their own condition. We’re all so afflicted, such prisoners of our habits and emotions! It’s so true!

If you’re a reader who gets impatient with a meandering author, The Condition will probably leave you more annoyed than satisfied. However, if you’re most content when letting an author create fully realized people in your head, this is a worthwhile read. But when the characters begin to bring the book to a close by doing things that don’t quite make sense, just remember this: they know not what they do.

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