This novella is an unconventional story of a family in mourning and the dysfunctional dynamics that come with it - a layered exploration of what it means to be a family. A quick but thoughtful read.

Published by W. W. Norton & Co. on June 19, 2018

Catherine and Michael Francis have been clinging to each other “out of fear and habit,” but the habit is no longer enough; “once the wrecking ball was in motion it was near impossible to stop.” It is difficult for a marriage to survive the death of a child, and there was “a remoteness that created a space between them” even before their daughter Rachel died in a car accident. Michael is living in London to be near his work; Catherine has moved to their country home to be near their son Rowan’s school.

Catherine has grieved the death primarily by blaming herself for bad parenting. She is trying to return to normal by losing herself in the management of the art gallery she owns. Michael is embracing a spiritual approch to coping with death. Rowan apparently repressed his feelings and ran from grief, which is why he wanted to attend a school outside of London, but his therapists agreed that he was taking charge of his emotions in a time of helplessness. Rowan believes he is the only family member who wants to remember Rachel honestly, and the only one who understands that the point of death is to reinforce the urgency of life. But Rowan also blames himself for Rachel’s death, for turning his back on the role she had assigned him as her protector.

It isn’t easy for the reader to decide whether Catherine’s sudden grievances about her husband and friends are legitimate, prompted by a closer examination of her life in the wake of a profound loss, or if Catherine has simply become dissatisfied with everything and everyone (but especially herself) as a result of that loss. Additional family drama comes from Rowan, whose choices about his future are not what Michael expects (or at least wants) them to be. Whether Rowan’s choices are good or bad is unclear, as is often the case when children make choices that their parents oppose.

The characters in The Shades are stronger than the novel's plot. Its focal point is a young woman named Kiera who comes into Catherine’s life about a year after Rachel’s death. Kiera tells Catherine that she once lived in the old house that Catherine now occupies. Catherine relishes the idea of Kiera joining her in her home, occupying the room that was once Rachel’s. Rowan and Michael are less sure that Catherine is making a wise choice. The reader is encouraged to wonder whether Kiera is being entirely candid with Catherine, and whether Catherine’s obvious desire to have Kiera act as a surrogate for Rachel is healthy.

The Shades (a term that refers to souls of the dead, at least in the opera L’Orfeo) illustrates how difficult it is for parents to be kind to each other when faced with the loss of a child, a time when love and kindness matter most. Michael’s awakening “to the holiness of existence” is a bit much, but it provides a nice contrast to the very different interior world that Catherine inhabits. The characterizations and Evgenia Citkowitz’s precision with language are more impressive than the plot, which culminates in a strange, out-of-the-blue climax that is meant to cause the reader to reinterpret some of the rest of the story. I generally like endings of that nature, but this one seemed artificial, as if Citkowitz needed to create a stopping point and hit upon a clever way to end the story. Still, The Shades succeeds as a character-driven novel, even if it doesn’t succeed on every level.

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This meditation on grief and it’s effects on a family, and their idea of home, was interesting in premise but in the end it was trying to address so many themes that I was left perplexed and a bit frustrated. There are comments on art, questions of how marriage copes with loss, as well as how the reality of a person differs from how they are perceived. So much going on, and unfortunately it didn’t work for me. Even the central mystery was a bit shady and opaque for me. An interesting counterpoint to the highly meditative and literary version of death I’m reading in The Friend. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!

I wanted to like this. In some ways I did, but mostly I found the book frustrating and I hated the ending. I really hated the ending and I feel that a lot of what I disliked about the book led up to that ending so it's tied in. I normally like huge last minute twists but this wasn't for me, I found it difficult having empathized with her the entire book and hoping that something would "break" and make everything link up. It reads more and more like a fever dream as it goes on, there are loose ends, some don't line up right, and there's a lot of excess information that isn't important while other information seems to sidetrack you but should mean more (Rowan is a very confusing character, he's difficult to read, wooden, and I failed to see the reasoning behind the tangent of his).

Overall I can only say I'm not sure about this book. I did sort of like it, but it left me very confused.

Unfortunately, I found this book rather confusing. I thought I would really like it based on the summary but that was not the case. The story was slow moving and I found it hard to get into, initially. The family is attempting to cope with the immense loss of their teenage daughter/twin sister to her brother. It is very sad story of how people cope with grief differently and how it can destroy a person's life. It was a little spooky as well. Most of the action takes part at the very end....just not a good fit for me, story, character and plot-wise. Thanks for the ARC!

The Shades is a novel about grief and family relationships. The Hall's have lost their teenage daughter Rachel in a car accident and they and her surviving twin brother are left to pick up the pieces. Encased in her own grief, Catherine Hall becomes reclusive and also seems to start a relationship with a young woman- who claims to have grown up in the home Catherine is staying in. Meanwhile, her husband tries to cope with life and the aftermath of their daughter's death, and with the struggles of their son Rowan. Rowan goes to a boarding school and while there, becomes enamored with the movement to save the world's environment--he feels a need to place his passions somewhere, and also, finds it to fill a space in his life left by his sister's absence. They are all haunted by tragedy, and deal with it in ultimately life changing ways. This is a very sad and moving portrait of a family in pain.

This intense novel is an engrossing meditation on how grief renders us aching for connection and meaning. I think all humans ache for those things, but when we are contending with grief, our need for those things renders us vulnerable and sensitive. This novel explores the dangers and the hope of that vulnerability within a complexly engaging structure.

Thank you for the free ARC. The premise of the book was how these members of a family cope with the death of a daughter and sister. The mother becomes captivated by a girl that grew up in their house and things become desperate.