In the Middle of All This

by Fred G. Leebron

Martin Kreutzel and his ill sister, Elizabeth, are as close as grown siblings can be-they have an essential connection. However, she lives with her husband outside of London and he lives with his wife and two children in a small Pennsylvania college town where he and his wife are both professors. Neither one of them likes the atmosphere there but they both have tenure track positions and can raise their two children in a safe neighborhood, in a house they can own. As Elizabeth's cancer worsens, Martin's love for her cripples his abilities at work and at home. When Elizabeth's husband, Richard, disappears for a few days, and one of Martin's students hangs herself, Martin finds himself torn between serving his sister and being a good husband, father, and professor. After Martin makes a trip to London to be with his sister, the situation gets stranger, alarming even, when Richard returns and whisks his wife off for the day, disappearing again, except this time he takes Elizabeth withhim. Leebron's compelling third novel brings us into the world of domestic unease as two couples and their joined families wrestle with empathy's limitations in the uncompromising teeth of mortality.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151008345
• ISBN13: 9780151008346
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Elegant Craftsmanship

One of the characters in this uncompromising book remarks that life always takes place "in the middle of all this," and it certainly does. This is a long journey in a short book and each page is fresh, beautifully conceived and wonderfully well-written. What a pleasure!

Powerful, moving, beautiful

There's going to be a wide disparity of opinions about this book, since it deals with a hot-button, emotional subject: a sibling dying of cancer. For my money, the book and especially the writing are on the mark. For all its seriousness, it's also brutally funny, as we follow Martin self-destructing as he tries to give solace to his sister.