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Family Pictures
Family Pictures
Author: Sue Miller
A masterful, engrossing novel about the life of a large family that is deeply bounded by the stranger in their midst -- an autistic child — The whole world could not have broken the spirit and strength of the Eberhardt family of 1948. Lainey is a wonderful if slightly eccentric mother. David is a good father, sometimes sarcastic, always ...  more »
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ISBN-13: 9780060929985
ISBN-10: 0060929987
Publication Date: 1999
Pages: 448
Rating:
  • Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
 33

3.4 stars, based on 33 ratings
Publisher: Perennial
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio Cassette
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed Family Pictures on + 257 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
Good, not as good as The Good Mother, but good. I recommend this to any family who has an autistic child in the family. It really shows how that impacts the family on a whole.
reviewed Family Pictures on + 404 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
"Sue Miller can flat-out write, there is no doubt about that. Her prose is polished, smooth, and engrossing, incorporating fine cadence, descriptive language, and an unusual ability to capture skillfully some of the feelings or thoughts that she attributes to particular characters." amazon
toni avatar reviewed Family Pictures on + 351 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Family Pictures is a book that doesn't let go. You may want to read it twice: the first time to allow yourself to be swept up in caring and aching for this family, then again to savor Sue Miller's words and grasp their full impact. The story is told through the eyes of four different family members, and the complexity of family relationships is brought home through the various ways different characters interpret and react to the same events. The catalyst for this family's dysfunction is an autistic child, and each family member deals with Randall's mute power in his or her own way. The psychiatrist father withdraws emotionally and physically, unable to bear his family's pain as he does his patients'. The mother manifests her love, guilt, and shame through compulsive achievements, from wallpapering to having three more "perfect" children to compensate for Randall. The children foray into rebellious acts of teens in the 1960s. Each character comes to realize with varying degrees of poignancy "that each child represents such risk, such blind daring on its parents' parts - such possibility for anguish and pain - that each one's existence was kind of a miracle." This warm, gritty, realistic tale is about such daring
reviewed Family Pictures on
Helpful Score: 2
Engrossing, sometimes heart wrenching, but excellent reading. I couldn,t put it down. GinaK
reviewed Family Pictures on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A large family attempts to deal with one memebers difference - autism - when autism was barely recognizable on the spectrum of disorders. The father was a psychiatrist, unable to heal his son and the mother, a stay at home mom, unable to provide the perfect looking family in 1950's America. Also, at that time Autism was commonly blamed on the mother who was considered too cold or sterile therefore de-emotionalizing the child. How did all this effect a large family - read and find out!!
Read All 13 Book Reviews of "Family Pictures"

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reviewed Family Pictures on + 120 more book reviews
An unforgettable book.
reviewed Family Pictures on + 222 more book reviews
A good story, a bit long and drawn out by the end
reviewed Family Pictures on + 34 more book reviews
Very touching story of how a family deals with autism.
reviewed Family Pictures on + 12 more book reviews
I found this book to be really good. I have a disabled child myself so it kind of struck home. It's a good read.
reviewed Family Pictures on + 271 more book reviews
When I began to force myself to return to this book, I knew it wasn't for me. Life is too short to read slow books! In fact, it was pretty boring. D.


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