Early Leaving: A Novel

by Judy Goldman

Book Overview

A mother wakes one morning to find the police at her door to arrest her only child-a star athlete and honor student-for murder. The Smallwoods are one of those families who project a rosy image,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060594586
• ISBN13: 9780060594589
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

What keeps you up at night?

I am a new, first-time mom and I am so glad I carved out the time to read Early Leaving. This wonderful yet chilling book should be required reading for all parents. Once I got into it (on page one), I couldn't put it down. Judy Goldman, in her graceful, poetic style, has created a world I feel I could easily stray into while raising my child(ren). This world features a mother who loves her son so much she does everything she can to keep every aspect of his life happy and trouble-free. We are trained to do this with our infants; how do we learn to put on the brakes once our children are older? With that question in mind I feel it would have been predictable for Goldman to write about an overindulgent, overprotective mother who singlehandedly dooms her child to a lifetime on the psychologist's couch. Instead, she shows us how complicated, entwining and unpredictable families and child-rearing can be. Kathryne's relationship with her husband Peter; Peter's relationship with their child Early; Early's relationship with his best friend Chip. Each of these bonds (and more) exert influence in the formation of a person. None is the sole cause of who a person becomes, and yet none is innocent. Judy Goldman is a wise guide helping us navigate the complex emotional story Kathryne narrates. Rather than settle for easy answers, Goldman poses thoughtful questions to the end. This is why I believe all parents should read this book (and why I have already recommended it to all the young parents I know). We are given the opportunity to study another family's life under a microscope, thus providing us with a mirror or a foil for our own decisions.

A book for current or future parents

Ask any parent to list their greatest fears for their children, and seeing a child carted off to jail for murder is probably not one of them. That is for good reason -- while most of us realize that there may be aspects of how we parent that may be flawed, overall we are optimistic about how our children will turn out. And we are honestly surprised if and when things go wrong. This novel does a wonderful job of taking that scenario -- a son on a bright, upward path who stumbles into tragedy -- and explores what brought him to that point. Goldman sorts through Early's upbringing and family ties, and holds up various bits and pieces for our collective review -- some we can discard, some we are not sure about, and others may reverberate powerfully. But it is no easy task to simply assign blame or grant forgiveness. This book shies away from easy lessons. We are instead encouraged to look beyond the parent-child relationship and pay closer attention to the parent-parent-child one. It should be on all of our reading lists.

This is a page-turner!

This is one of the best books I've read all year. On page one, the reader finds out that a young man from a privileged family has been convicted of murder. It is almost impossible to stop reading from that point on. This is not a murder mystery though; it's a perceptive, moving narrative about parenting and marriage. There are incredible insights on every page; you'll want to put stars in the margins next to all the beautiful descriptive details. Although Early Leaving might be thought of as a woman's book, I would recommend it to anyone interested in stories about family -- how entangled and complex those relationships can be.