Nothing is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn

I wanted to like this book. I really did. Alice Mattison has all the right ingredients: a family tale involving three generations, a controlling best friend, secrets from the past, but the execution falters. First, it's set during two time periods: in 1989, Con comes to take care of her mother's apartment while her mother, Gert, visits her best friend in upstate New York. In 2003, she returns to this Brooklyn neighborhood; she's now a lawyer, but the robbery that happened long ago still haunts her. The author switches back and forth between time periods but not smoothly at all in lines such as "Con (in 1989) imagined taking her mother's largest knife..." and "Con in her apartment in Brooklyn in 2003 finished cleaning the bathroom and went for a walk." Nothing like being plunked out of the narrative flow. Then there are the emails, the most boring e-correspondence ever invented. If I received emails like that, I'd pull the plug. Mattison does have a gift for developing believable characters: three strong woman being drawn toward and away from each other. Marlene, Con's daughter, discovers that it was not a straight robbery all those years ago. People interested in family sagas will find something of interest here, but it could have been a much better read.