What Happened to Henry?

by Sharon Pywell

Book Overview

What Happened to Henryis a funny, moving, wise, and powerful tale of a family's struggle to understand their own son-who is either crazy or blessed, not unlike the Cold War America in which they live. Nine-year-old Lauren Cooper is devoted to her brother, Henry. She looks to him for strength, wisdom, and the cool levelheadedness that, she is realizing, she lacks. But when a sudden tragedy upsets the balance of her close-knit family, Henry's steadfastness...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399151680
• ISBN13: 9780399151682
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Exploring complex sibling relationships

This book is a fascinating novel that follows three siblings relationship through adulthood coping in a fairly positive way with a dysfunctional family life . The story is primarily seen through the middle child's eyes--a girl--a la Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. But the story is filled with magical realism, and a secondary story about the bombing of Hiroshima on the individuals and its far reaching effect on the generation of the 1950's. There is more of a dark perspective about family, sibling relationships, and growing up in the guilty consciousness of the US culture of the 1950's than Lee's book has about its cultural conflict of racism. It is a compelling book, realistic, and doesn't dwell on the family environment looking for blame or restitution, but on the children making it through into adulthood as they survive all the adult responsibilities they shared as kids.

A wonderful book

This is an author who should be getting more attention. Her writing is lovely and her story equally so. From the first sentence you know you are in the hands of someone who can write and has a story to tell. It is a rare combination of talents. I loved these characters. They were beautiful and moving and REAL, and I missed them when the book was over. I can't wait for her next book.

A compelling, beautifully crafted, life affirming novel! Simply superb!!

Sharon Pywell's beautifully crafted debut novel, "What Happened To Henry," chronicles the lives of the three extraordinary Cooper siblings from early childhood through adulthood in 1960's post WWII USA. The book's recurrent theme is the powerful, haunting memory of the devastation at Hiroshima, in the aftermath of the atomic-bomb drop of 1945 that brought immediate or horrifically lingering death to more than 140,000 people. The A-bomb, which the Japanese called "pika-don," did not simply kill, maim and injure masses of people and destroy buildings. It obliterated all the living and the community of the living. It devastated society and wrecked havoc on the environment. This year, 2005, is the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima's and Nagasaki's annihilation. The subject is introduced into the narrative in a subtle manner, and gives one pause to reflect on the impact the atomic bomb had, not only on Japanese and US children, but on children everywhere, who grew up in the days of the Cold War, with threats of nuclear missile attacks as a backdrop to their lives. The Coopers are a middle class family of devout Catholics who live in a the suburban community of Eleusis, NY. It is 1960. Lauren, the middle child, is having a problem getting through First Communion. She is the only nine year-old in the class. A "First Communion failure," this is the third time she repeats the curriculum but will hopefully receive the sacrament soon, along with her seven year-old classmates. She had been foiled on her initial attempt by multiple streptococcus infections. Her fate was sealed on her second shot by a bowl of salted peanuts she found lying on the kitchen table. Lauren had a momentary lapse of memory about fasting before receiving the host. Her older brother Henry witnessed her downfall, so she couldn't lie. Thus, she continues to study catechisms with the stern, feisty, ever practical Sister Leonarda, hoping to succeed and get it over with. Lauren really struggles with the logic and veracity behind transubstantiation, martyrdom and heaven, especially when the sister makes pronouncements like, "Those who believe that they can evade judgment are generally struck down by trucks or disease before they can receive the sacrament of Extreme Unction." Lauren has good reason to question these beliefs, as the reader will discover. Winston, the youngest Cooper is seven and a little hellion...or perhaps "tyrant" would be a more apropos description. When his wishes, which become his commands, are not fulfilled, or when his feelings are hurt, he dismantles everything in sight, and is quite effective in his destruction skills, being mechanically and electrically inclined. Winston compulsively takes the protective coverings off wall sockets and rewires everything. He is always absconding with his father's tools, like the hacksaw he smuggled into his bedroom to saw his bed's headboard in half. Annie Cooper, the children's mother, is distraught by her son's behavior and can ne

a lovely book

This book is a beautifully written account of a family and the Japanese spirit that inhabits one of the children. While it might sound far-fetched, the presence of Asagao is perfectly natural and is essential. What Happened to Henry is a special combination of great writing, strong characters, and good dialogue. I was sorry to see it end and I look forward to Pywell's next novel.

The Care and Maintenance of Spirits After a War

Sharon Pywell has accomplished the impossible; she has written a book about transcendence that is poignant and often hilarious, open to all wounds yet filled with hope. She erects finite boundaries in order to trample them: images from Japan seep into a New York household, past oozes into present, death into life, insanity into revelation, infidelity into pure devotion. She rejects easy answers in favor of paradox, synthesis and higher truth. Pywell's main character often feels the pull of opposite impulses, such as her bitter rivalry with one brother, her blind love for the other. Pywell has done a masterful job at describing the attraction of metaphysical questions, combined with doubt about the answers. I am so grateful for Pywell's humorous portrayal of young Lauren Cooper puzzling over the edicts of her catechism teacher, Sister Leonarda. Pywell's prose is fresh and vivid as the latest gossip, so steeped in ambiguous detail that it could be poetry, albeit very fun and readable poetry. Her characters are so true and so vulnerable that you wish you could hug them; they tug at your feelings like old songs. Women hide behind crusty attitudes, plays for attention and acts of service; men find safety behind slide rules, testosterone and care-giving, and yet all seek redemption through love. Indeed, this is one of the most searching explorations of the nature and power of love that I have ever read. _What happened to Henry?_ is a must-read for anyone who suspects that love and salvation are related, as well as for anyone who longs for a new voice on the literary scene.