All This Could Be Yours

By Jami Attenberg

From critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg comes a novel of family secrets: think the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a New Orleans summer.

“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father, Victor, is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister—feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra.

As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drugstores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As family members grapple with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.

All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can entangle a family for generations, and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free. With her signature “sparkling prose” (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780544824270

Jami Attenberg

Jami Attenberg is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins and All Grown Up; a memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You; and, most recently, 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. She is the founder of the annual #1000WordsofSummer project, and maintains the popular Craft Talk newsletter year-round. Her work has been published in sixteen languages. She lives in New Orleans.

Book preview

1

He was an angry man, and he was an ugly man, and he was tall, and he was pacing. Not much space for it in the new home, just a few rooms lined up in a row, underneath a series of slow-moving ceiling fans, an array of antique clocks ticking on one wall. He made it from one end of the apartment to the other in no time at all—his speed a failure as much as it was a success—then it was back to the beginning, flipping on his heel, grinding himself against the floor, the earth, this world.

The pacing came after the cigar and the Scotch. Both had been unsatisfactory. The bottle of Scotch had been sitting too close to the window for months, and the afternoon sun had destroyed it, a fact he had only now just realized, the flavor of the Scotch so bitter he had to spit it out. And he had coughed his way through his cigar, the smoke tonight tickling his throat vindictively. All the things he loved to do, smoking, drinking, walking off his frustrations, those pleasures were gone. He’d been at the casino earlier, hanging with the young bucks. Trying to keep up with them. But even then, he’d blown through that pleasure fast. A thousand bucks gone, a visit to the bathroom stall. What was the point of it? He had so little left to give him joy, or the approximation of it. Release, that was always how he had thought of it. A release from the grip of life.

His wife, Barbra, sat on the couch, her posture tepid, shoulders loose, head slouched, no acknowledgment of his existence. But she glanced at him now as he paused in front of her, and then she dropped her head back down again. Her hair dyed black, chin limping slightly into her neck, but still, at sixty-eight years old, as petite and wide-eyed as ever. Once she had been the grand prize. He had won her, he thought, like a stuffed animal at a sideshow alley. She flipped through an Architectural Digest. Those days are gone, sweetheart, he thought. Those objects are unavailable to you. Their lives had become a disgrace.

Now would have been an excellent time to admit he had been wrong all those years, to confess his missteps in full, to apologize for his actions. To whom? To her. To his children. To the rest of them. This would have been the precise moment to acknowledge the crimes of his life that had put them in that exact location. His flaws hovered and rotated, kaleidoscope-like, in front of his gaze, multicolored, living, breathing shards of guilt in motion. If only he could put together the bits and pieces into a larger vision, to create an understanding of his choices, how he had landed on the wrong side, perhaps always had. And always would.

Instead he was angry about the taste of a bottle of Scotch, and suggested to his wife that if she kept a better home, none of this would have happened, and also would she please stop fucking around with the thermostat and leave the temperature just as he liked. And she had flipped another page, bored with his Scotch, bored with his complaints.

The guy downstairs said something again, she said. About this. She motioned to his legs. The pacing, they could hear it through the floor.

I can walk in my own home, he said.

Sure, she said. Maybe don’t do it so late at night, though.

He marched into their bedroom, stomping loudly, and plummeted headfirst onto their bed. Nobody loves me, he thought. Not that I care. He had believed, briefly, he could find love again, even now, as an old man, but he had been wrong. Loveless, fine, he thought. He closed his eyes and allowed himself one last series of thoughts: a beach, sand bleached an impenetrable white, a motionless blue sky, the sound of birds nearby, a thigh, his finger running along it. No one’s thigh in particular. Just whatever was available from a pool of bodies in his memory. His imaginary hand squeezed the imaginary thigh. It was meant to cause pain. He waited for his moment of arousal, but instead he began to gasp for air. His heart seized. Release me, he thought. But he couldn’t move, face-down in the pillow, a muffled noise. A freshly laundered scent. A field of lavender, the liquid cool color of the flower, interrupted by bright spasms of green. Release me. Those days are over.

---

Ninety minutes later an EMT named Corey responded to his last call of the day. The Garden District. A heart attack, seventy-three-year-old male. The patient’s wife let him and his partner in wordlessly, and then had leaned on the doorway to the bedroom, watching them work, until she finally deposited herself on the couch in the living room. Stone-cold ice queen. Her eyes bulging, frog-like. A row of creepy-ass clocks clicking above her head. So many diamonds on her hands and neck. He subconsciously stroked the two diamond studs in his right ear, one a gift from his ex-wife, the other for which he had saved scrupulously.

Before they left, patient in tow, Corey told her the name of the hospital where they’d be taking her husband. He could not get a verbal acknowledgment. She simply continued to stare. He waved a hand in front of her face. He was low on patience. He never got enough sleep. The last thing he needed was to have to take her in, too.

Come on, lady, he said.

Finally she let out a massive exhale and then began gasping for air. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear she’d been dying and had just come back to life.

2

Alex, in bed but not sleeping. Feet flexed. The air conditioning blasting for no reason. Yoga pants, soft, fluttering T-shirt, and cashmere socks, which were a birthday gift from four years ago, when she was not yet divorced and a man still wanted her to feel good. Laptop at twenty-nine percent, resting on her stretched-out thighs. Open to a brief, in which she ceaselessly typed, as if the pure intensity of her fingertips would somehow make this a winnable case, which it was not.

Alex, with the monstrously large brown eyes, unblinking, and the thin, serious, taut lips, and the delicate membrane of grief she regularly nudged up against, nearly stroking it; because of its familiarity, it now felt good to engage with the grief. There was no good or bad; there was just sensation.

Alex, alone this summer, in a house on a cul-de-sac in a subdivision of a town forty-five minutes west of Chicago, while her daughter spent it away from home, with her ex-husband. On the night table, a mug of Valerian tea, which she drank every night, even though it never worked as it should. Like she sleeps. Come on. She’s wired like a ceiling lamp, bolted and secured. But it’s habitual, this tea. Maybe someday it will knock her out.

The phone rang. It was her mother, with whom she spoke rarely, except for the occasional grim conversations. Basic life facts exchanged. She had given up on her parents years ago. Things would never be honest between them. So why bother with any relationship at all? She answered anyway. No one ever calls with good news this late in the evening. If she didn’t answer, she’d only stay up all night wondering what it was. Better just to know.

Barbra sounded frail and tender, a gravelly and sweet quality to her voice. I have news, she said. Alex’s father was in the hospital. Probably he would die. Alex gasped. "That’s what I said," said her mother, and it was a good line—Barbra was sometimes funny, Alex flickered on that—but Alex didn’t laugh. Anyway, her mother would like to know: could she come to New Orleans immediately?

I need some assistance, her mother said. Barbra, who had never asked for anything except that her daughter be pleasant, and, sometimes, that she be quiet—both unrealistic expectations, Alex had always thought.

I’ll come tomorrow, said Alex.

Deeply, almost erotically, she was stirred. Now, this is happening. Now, things could be different.

Now, she’ll never fall asleep.

3

In Griffith Park, with a direct, intense gaze, Gary watched the sun set over Los Angeles. Seeking clarity as his heart rate slowed. He’d been walking every day since he’d arrived, between whatever meetings he could get, a difficult task, especially in late August. Every morning he strode determinedly in a loop around the reservoir in Silver Lake, early, when it was still cool, and every afternoon he took a more leisurely hike in Griffith Park, ambling through the land on dusty trails and then up to the observatory. Making his way around cheerful packs of tourists stopped in their tracks, cameras held aloft, trained to hide all the bad angles. He never got to stretch his legs at home in New Orleans, not like this. As he walked today, he attempted to think about nothing. That was the goal. To get to zero in the brain.

Two hours ago, he had eaten an edible to help ease this line of nonthinking. It had been covered in chocolate.

His cell phone rang, and he didn’t answer it because it was his mother, and why would he want to talk to her? She had showed up in his life lately, along with his father, after many years of a reasonable, healthy distance. The decades-long unspoken agreement to keep to their own corners of the country somehow spontaneously collapsed: they had moved to New Orleans—who knew why? Certainly it wasn’t because of a sincere desire to build an emotional connection with him and his family. Closeness was not their thing, his parents. But there they both were, every other week, sitting in his living room, expecting him to offer them a drink. To cater to their needs. While they got to know his wife and child, whom he would rather protect from them—if he could, he would have built a wall to separate the four of them. And now everyone’s talking all the time. Chitchatting. Wasn’t it enough that he had to see his mother for dinner on a regular basis? Did he really have to take her calls, too?

He turned his attention back to the sun and the vibrant bright pink that surrounded it. To get to zero was not exactly correct. What he was seeking was an absence of a consideration of women. He didn’t want to have to care anymore about what they thought or felt. He’d spent his whole life caring, in contrast to his father, who’d spent his whole life not caring. He didn’t want that life any longer, though. He wanted nothingness. A flat line in the head.

Except for his daughter, Avery; he would care about her forever.

Next, his wife texted. He saw her name, but did not consume the comment beneath it. There were dozens of texts in a row from her to which he had not yet responded, and if he waited long enough, perhaps he would not be obliged to do so. He thought: If a text disappears from sight, does it even exist anymore? It becomes just a thought someone had once. I’m really on to something, he thought. He made a small fist in the air. I need to keep staring at this fucking sunset for five more minutes and I know I’ll have it all figured out. Don’t leave me yet, sunset, don’t you dare die on me, little spot of orange and pink, not when I’m this close to figuring it all out.

The phone rang again, and it was his sister.

Except for my sister, too, he thought. This plan for not caring, already gone awry.

He always wanted to talk to Alex, because she was not just his sister, but also his friend, and also, they had both survived that house in Connecticut together, and it was a natural instinct to accept her hand when she reached it toward him, although maybe he should have waited a beat longer before picking up, because the mother-wife-sister communication trifecta could mean nothing good, and there’s no better way to ruin a sunset than picking up a phone call. But it was Alex, and he loved her, so he answered, and she was so breathless with the news about their father’s heart attack she sounded nearly joyful, which anyone else might have found inappropriate but he didn’t, he was on her team, and she was on his, and by the time he was done talking to her, the sun was gone, and he found himself in tears.

There was his moment of clarity. Because while he would have liked to erase the thought of women, perhaps more than that he would have liked to erase the thought of his father. And now that seemed possible. At last.

Nearby a woman was paused, post-hike. She stole looks at Gary, at his long legs, at his tight, sweat-stained T-shirt, at his emotion-filled face with its sizable, striking nose, at his dark curls dampening his forehead. He’s crying, she thought. Is that touching, or is that a warning sign? She couldn’t tell. Then she looked at his enormous hands. She saw no ring.

She thought to herself: If I ever have to meet another man online, I’m going to jump right off this cliff—I can’t do it, I can’t, not anymore.

The woman was a Pilates instructor; she offered private training for rich people who couldn’t be bothered to leave their office or home. She was exceptional at her job. She had a waiting list. Her body was immaculate. She owned her own condo. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She couldn’t meet anyone.

She studied his form, and thought: What if this man is the one, why not him? What if he turns his head right now and looks at me and smiles. That might mean he could love me. Love me, love me, love me, she thought, even as Gary turned and walked back down the winding path toward the rest of his life. Briefly, she felt like a failure. But it wasn’t your fault, lady. You could never have known what was going on with Gary.

4

Avery was stretched out after breakfast on the bottom bunk, eyes glazed and dreamy, staring up at the names of the girls who had slept there before her, scrawled on the bottom of the bed above. Who knew there were so many names? Who was the first to sign it? Abby, Natasha, Tori, Latoya, and a few dozen more. Laying claim. Avery wanted to add her own name, but she wasn’t sure she existed yet like the rest of them.

Or, for example, like snakes did. It was Snake Week at camp. They existed, because they knew their purpose. They slithered, they hunted their prey. Avery was twelve; what did she do? She ate, she breathed, she did her homework. But what did that accomplish? What if snakes were her purpose?

She thought of those she loved, which Homo sapiens. Her mother, her father, her cousin Sadie, whom she never saw but texted with constantly, her grandmother, she supposed, her grandfather . . . The cabin door opened. It was a counselor, Gabrielle, the one who didn’t shave her bikini line. Avery had seen her at the lake. Everyone had. Hair sprouting out from under her bathing suit. Avery didn’t know if that was bad or good. It was just hair, she supposed. Why don’t I know? Why can’t I decide? Snakes are easy. Snakes, I know.

Gabrielle approached Avery, gently told her they needed to have a talk. All the other girls in the cabin said Oooh at once. They left the cabin and walked for a bit, the older girl resting her hand on Avery’s shoulder, and then she put her phone in Avery’s hand. Cell phones were forbidden at the camp, and Avery experienced a brief thrill holding one in her hand again. Cell phones were her friends, she felt. They were there for her when no one else was. There was always texting. There was always Instagram. There were always videos of snakes.

On the phone, Avery’s mother spoke to her about her grandfather. That he was sick in the hospital and that he might die. I thought you’d want to know, she said. I know you two were buddies.

Were they? On the walk back to the cabin that already sweltering August morning, Avery thought of all the time she’d spent with her grandfather in the past six months. He’d pick her up after school and drive her around in his new car, all over the city, while he gabbed about his life, his business ventures. For the first month she’d paid attention to him, but she understood little of what he was saying. The following few months she’d stared out the window and daydreamed of animals and trees and grass and the river and the coastline, where men made their living catching oysters and shrimp. But lately she’d tuned in again, and it was then she realized that the stories he told were all bad, that he did bad things. Even though he thought he was the hero.

Simultaneously bored and intrigued, she asked him if what he did was illegal.

No one is innocent in this life. Everyone’s a criminal, trust me. Except for you, I guess. You’re pretty innocent, right?

I don’t know what I am, she said, which was true.

Don’t ever change, kid, he said. But he didn’t sound convincing to Avery at all. It came out as a statement rather than a command. Then he lit a cigar, and the car filled with smoke. She waved it away from her face. When he dropped her off, he said, Let’s not tell your mother I was smoking around you. He handed her a hundred-dollar bill. If she asks, you know, just tell her we ran into a buddy of mine who was smoking instead. She stared at the money in her palm and then looked up at him, silent, shocked. You drive a hard bargain, he’d said, and handed her another bill. He gave her an appraising look. That’s a good skill to have. She nodded in agreement—to all of it.

She liked money, she guessed. Money was a thing you were supposed to like. But now Avery was a liar. Before this moment she was not a liar, and now, suddenly, she was one. Did he do that or did she?

In twenty years, she would date a man who smoked cigars. He was not good to her; the relationship was quite fraught, in fact. They snapped at each other, and argued about politics, about the man’s employer, how Avery couldn’t understand how he worked for him, about morals, about ethics, about capitalism. They stayed together much longer than they should have, and every time he smoked a cigar Avery hated the smell, but for some reason, with all the things she gave him shit about, she never said a word about it. After the relationship was finished, she realized: I should have started there, with the cigars. The whole thing would have been over a lot sooner.

As she approached the cabin, her bunkmates stretching and chattering on the front porch, she tried to land on a feeling. She knew there was something off about her grandfather. That at the very least she might be better off if he wasn’t around. But at the same time, she thought: Death is sad. No one should die. No living creature deserved to die. She knew it was nature. She knew there were cycles. Her other grandparents had died. (They were much better people than this grandfather, that she knew, too.) But someone, somewhere should be sad about her grandfather. And so, she cried.

When she got to her bunk, she lay back on the mattress and pulled out a pen. Next to all the other girls’ names she wrote her own. And then, next to hers, she wrote his. Victor.

5

Ten a.m., and the house woke Corey before he was ready. A foundation that rattled when trucks passed nearby on Claiborne. The freeway on-ramp a half block away; traffic seemed endless. An ex-wife who put her phone on speaker for every conversation, as if the whole world was interested in her business. Never mind the three children, one just out of diapers, everyone coming and going as they pleased. Corey crashed on a couch in the second room off the backyard, formerly the office. One kid or another was always marching through, on the way to play their shows on the extra TV when they all couldn’t agree on what to watch on the big one in the front room, or when his oldest, Pablo, a teenager, went to smoke cigarettes in the backyard. Plus, they liked to spend time with him, and he loved them all a lot, laughed with them, teased them, poked them. How could he argue with his children coming to see their daddy?

Otherwise, it was almost like a room of his own. He had moved in a clothing rack from which he hung his uniforms, his jeans, his T-shirts, all pressed, his shoes lined up underneath. A family portrait—minus Corey—hung on the wall. Three dark-haired children smiling, all with varying degrees of dental stability, no baby teeth, braces, braces-free, and Camila, with her glittering hoop earrings and rosy décolletage and tired eyes. She’d had the photo taken during the late stages of their divorce. He liked to look up at them all anyway, pretend he had been at his job that day instead.

He was willing to work with the situation. And it was their right to go where they wanted. But couldn’t they sometimes respect that he had a late shift?

Not my house, he reminded himself. Not my rules. He had landed there, debt-ridden,

Reviews for All This Could Be Yours

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A novel about a deeply dysfunctional family, centering on various family members' relationships with Victor, who was a criminal, philanderer, abuser, and all-around terrible person, and who currently lies unconscious, waiting to die.I think my experience of this one was marred by too-high expectations, something that, ironically, was the product of going into the previous Jami Attenberg novel I read with too-low expectations. That one was All Grown Up, and it looked like a very chicklitty sort of novel (which is very much not my thing) about the sort of person I'd likely have no interest in or connection with, but to my great surprise, I loved it. The writing was excellent, the characters felt very real, and it ended up being quite emotionally affecting.So, naturally, I was expecting a similar experience from this one, which instead was just sort of... not bad? I do like the way Attenberg can casually and chaotically jump around from POV to POV, a practice that normally irritates me, and make it actually work for the story in a way that, for the most part, feels meaningful and right. But while the characters were at least somewhat interesting, they lacked that feeling of realness, and in return I lacked a strong feeling of investment in any of them.So, it was all just a little bit disappointing, even if I do still think Attenberg is a good writer and am still interested in reading more of her stuff.

[write5review · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Tentacles of Dysfunction

Jami Attenberg has a rep as the mother of dysfunctional families. In other words, she writes about crises that affect many middle class families in the U.S. Read her and you won’t feel alone. However, there’s more here, as there was in her quite good The Middlesteins, within which Edie sought refuge in overeating with no regard for the effect on her family. In her latest, All This Could Be Yours, an ironic title for sure, the theme is similar. Here, husband, father, grandfather Victor’s overall badness, his criminality, his brutality, his avarice, and his philandering affect his family in such ways as to transform them into a dysfunctional mess. The story moves along at a steady clip, with all revealed by the end in a sort of answer to daughter Alex, who wants to know what happened between her mother Barbra and father Victor. Better you don’t, advises brother Gary from far away in L.A.

Barbra and Victor have been married for years, she in her sixties and well tended, he seventy-three and lying on life support in a New Orleans hospital. It’s a death watch, one Barbra conducts by walking endlessly through the hospital corridors. As she does, she thinks over her life with Victor, how they met, how impressed she was with his forcefulness, how she got most all a person could wish for materially, and the price she has paid.

It’s this very thing that has turned her into an insular, cool person, and the very thing Alex wants to know. Alex, a lawyer, with a daughter, Avery, months out of a broken marriage, travels from Chicago to New Orleans not to make amends with her father, as her mother urges, for Alex’s own well being, but to learn this thing. She pursues her mother on the subject, but can’t seem to pierce her mother’s emotional carapace.

Gary, the adult son, has been estranged from his parents for years because he despises his father for reasons he reveals. A director, a second AD really, he found happiness with Twyla, originally from Alabama, whom he met in L.A. where she did makeup. He gave up his L.A. dreams for her and moved to New Orleans, well before his parents showed up from Connecticut, after Victor got out of financial and criminal problems and fled to The Big Easy. He adored Twyla and all was good until Victor appeared and Gary made the mistake of reading Twyla’s diary one time too many. (Yes, readers, he read her diary regularly taking cues from her wishes and hopes to constantly please her; the ying and yang of snooping.)

To sum up, it’s all a pretty sorted tale when it finally comes together deep into the novel. For people who need to know what happens after the drama ends, Attenberg includes a final section that traces the lives of the characters years after Victor’s and Barbra’s deaths. Also, she includes a non family member, the most likable in the novel, a strong black woman who wrestles life into a form that pleases her. She puts the final note to Victor.

Most should find this a satisfying family saga, even if the family is not apple pie American. Or, who knows, maybe it is.

[arosoff-513117 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a multifocal novel about a dysfunctional family that pivots around the deathbed of the patriarch.

Attenberg is a good writer, and I enjoyed the book well enough, but I kept asking myself, "why?" I didn't feel like there was enough new here. It's a fairly well worn plot, and while soapy revelations aren't necessary, the voices of the individual characters don't feel very unique--only Twyla really seems to develop as a character. The multiple points of view work well enough for the most part, but there are sections that are devoted to characters who are only tangentially related to the main story. I understand why they were there--there's information revealed through these points of view--but at the same time, their backstories that are given in these sections don't seem terribly well meshed with the main story. It read as if she wanted to integrate the novel into the city of New Orleans, and it doesn't totally work.

[narshkite · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I am shocked by how much I disliked this book. I love a good dysfunctional family story. Honestly there was a lot in here that was very relatable. The character of Barb is quite similar to my own mother. I can't count the number of times my mother told me that all she wanted was for me to be thin and pretty. And lord knows I understand how disconcerting it is to have complicated unresolved feelings about a father's death. (My father was a saint compared to Victor, but still not easy.) Deciding what you will and won't forgive a dead parent for is an inner monologue that never shuts up for long. This is something I understand, and therefore this should have been a great read, but it was not. These characters were all so stunted and inauthentic. I correctly guessed in advance most of the actions and reactions of the characters, not because they seemed the things real people would do in that situation, but because they were the things that people in bad television shows do when they have unresolved parent issues. Just so much cheap psychology. And Twyla, what the hell was that character? She was ridiculous. The whole thing felt, in the words of Tim Gunn, like student work.

[banjo123 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really like Attenberg's writing. She uses alternating viewpoints and a light touch, to explore a dysfunctional family and the abusive patriarch at it's head. Alex Tuchman has had a heart attack and is in a coma; we explore the reactions of his wife, son, daughter, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters. Parts of the story are also told by side characters. It is set in New Orleans, and Attenberg's love for that city is evident.I liked the way the book moves from past to present and glimpses of future, giving us hope that at least parts of the family can survive and maybe even thrive, despite deep dysfunction and betrayal. It's quite character driven, but i thought the plot was great.

[penny_l-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Family dysfunction galore! This is an expertly woven story of the lives affected by an abhorrent man. His toxicity effects not only his family, but everyone who encounters them as well. The full circle narrative features a lot of 'aha, I see what you did there' moments as the character's stories interrelate to create an unputdownable read.

[debann6354-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful writing, appreciated being enmeshed into the psyche of the family members, enjoyed the depiction of New Orleans. Just finished the book and feel angry about the end, not the very end but the chapter about Sharon. I felt like I was catapulted into a different book. A book about Sharon probably would be interesting but I didn't think it belonged in this book other than the description of the fate of abandoned bodies. The story up to that point and after was well done. Attenberg does a great job capturing the complicated emotions of and between these particular family members. I was just so thrown off by a character introduced just prior to the finish line when I wanted more from the characters I was already invested in.

[kayanelson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

TOB-2020--All This Could Be Yours was a nice simple read about an extremely dysfunctional family. But there was nothing spectacular about the book.

[nivramkoorb · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is my 3rd book within the last 6 months that I have read by Attenberg. She is an excellent writer with good prose and an ability to get into the heads of her characters. The story is about a very dysfunctional family. The dysfunction comes from the father Victor Tuchman a 73 year old who is comatose in a New Orleans hospital after suffering from a heart attack. The book covers one day but does goes back in forth in time through the thoughts and actions of Barbara, his wife, Alex his divorced lawyer daughter, Gary his son. Twyla, Gary's wife and their grandchildren, Avery and Sadie. Without getting into too much detail suffice it to say that Victor Tuchman was a monster. He was bully, probably a criminal, and someone who had a profound negative impact on everyone around him. Attenberg does a great job of weaving the stories together, giving you a great feel for New Orleans, and incorporating the lives of the day to day people that came in touch with the members of the family. Although it is not a happy book it does have an upside as it shows what people can overcome no matter what. An excellent author and a worthwhile read.

[rglossne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Victor Tuchman is dying, and his family gathers in New Orleans. But Victor was a criminal, a brute, who has won and lost a fortune. We learn that he beat and abused Barbara, his wife. His daughter Alex is seeking to learn the truth about him in order to understand herself. His son won't come back from California; but his daughter-in-law is there with secrets of her own. Entertaining, well-written, for fans of stories about dysfunctional families.

[alanna1122 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my last book of the decade and it was a very good read. Attenberg deals with some pretty heavy stuff in this book but it reads quickly and the plot was engaging.There were several lines and passages that I particularly liked. She did something in this book I haven't seen done before. In a few instances, as the main characters navigated through their word she would pause and spend a moment on the internal thoughts of incidental characters they interacted with. She did this in an effortless and really beautiful kind of way. I love that. The characters themselves were hard to like, I have read one other of her books so I was not expecting a slew of sympathetic people so it wasn't disappointing.I thought it was a good quick read with an interesting plot.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Her mother hung up.Alex waved at the bartender, who gave her a polite nod. "I'll have another," she said.They always do, he thought for the thousandth time in his life. Get on the phone with your mother at a bar and it's two drinks, minimum. He'd been there. He gave her a healthy pour of rye in an act of camaraderie.When Alex's father is dying in a hospital room, she flies to New Orleans to see her parents. She wants to know what her father did. Specifically, she wants her mother to tell her about her father's criminal past. She already knows he was an abusive, authoritarian and largely absent father. Her brother is not coming back home from his business trip to Los Angeles, leaving his wife to fill the gap. He has his reasons for staying away and they aren't ones he'll share with his sister. Her mother wants her to forgive her father, even as she prefers to avoid the hospital room.Taking place over a single day, this novel tells the story of an unhappy family, none of whom are particularly good people, although none of them approach the sheer immorality of the man in the coma. Attenberg's writing is wonderful and her love for the city of New Orleans is apparent.

[ellenh_28 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't think I was going to like this in spite of all the great praise for it, but I did! These were rich, flawed characters that were captured so well in New Orleans! I may have to look at more of this author's writing.

[froxgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Meet the Tuchmans, two of the most despicable parental units in modern literature, put on earth to destroy their children and grandchildren with their violence, sexual harassment, and endless pursuit of living room remodeling. Yet the novel succeeds in amusing and horrifying the reader, with the addition of some seemingly random characters (a coroner, a roommate, a childhood friend) outside the family who fleetingly pop up and then depart, offering a welcome contrast to the terrible protagonists. The focus is on a sweltering summer day in post-Katrina New Orleans and the last breaths of father Victor, mourned by no one but mother Barbra (note spelling), and she's only sorry because the money stream, slowed to a trickle by a mountain of lawsuits, is going to die with him. Daughter Alex and son Gary, bolstered by their loving grandmother, manage to survive their childhoods, but divorce and their own demons make for a confusing inheritance for their daughters. The story is told from the PoV of every character other than Victor, and that's probably because his thoughts are too rancid to be put on the page. Somehow, though, it's a somberly hopeful book of clever dialogue and memorable confrontations.Quotes: "Residents who predated Twyla wanted to know her intentions with New Orleans, as if she were a suitor courting the city and they were overprotective parents.""Lonely was something you were born with. Lonely was about not feeling understood or heard."