Labor Day starts normally, well sort of normally, as normal as things get for Henry I guess. He's going to the store with his Mom and that doesn't happen very often, his Mom doesn't like to go out and if they go out now they won't be going out to a store for six more weeks.So Henry is figuring out that he should say that he doesn't need new shoes because then he might get to go out again soon. That's fine, I imagine that I would do the exact same thing if I were him. So while they are at the store, once Henry has gone to the bank and got money, he is trying to figure out how to buy a Playboy without his Mom catching him when he is approached by a man wearing a PriceMart(?) shirt that say Vinny and asked if Henry could help this guy. Henry notices that the guy is limping and bleeding and he's not quite sure what to do with him but when his Mom shows up, he introduces her to this guy who says that his name is Frank, not Vinny. They bring him home with them and they soon discover that Frank is an escaped convict, he jumped out of a window after having appendectomy. I've had an appendectomy and this was many years since this book was set and I didn't want to get out of bed, let alone jump out of a window. Frank is a badass!
So because of this Frank ties up Henry's Mom, Adele is her name, and they start talking about lots of different things and to Henry it doesn't really seem like Frank is holding his Mom hostage but that's ok too. Henry doesn't really know what to make of the whole situation and because of that the reader ends up being a little bit confused because Frank seems to be a good guy, he doesn't want to hurt anyone, but as we later learn in the book; he's a murderer. But, he teachers Henry how to really play catch and he teaches him how to make peach pie when a neighbor drops over with the peaches, talking mostly about the crust because that's what he truly learned from his grandma on the Christ,as Tree farm where he grew up. When Adele's only friend Evelyn and her son Barry, who is disabled and in a wheelchair, comes over; Frank treats Barry with so much care. He takes Barry out to the porch and lets him watch them play catch, he gives Barry a bath, and treats him with all the respect that a human being could ask for. Evelyn and Adele met in one of Adele's failed attempts to do a class, something about dance, but I can't really remember. It wasn't one of the facts that stuck with me. Much like Evelyn's name which I had to google, generally I'm good with these things.
Things change, however, when Henry realizes that his mother and Frank are falling in love. Now it's slightly weird that he talks about hearing the sex sounds of his mother and Frank, and that when they don't have sex he misses it. But it's a 13 year old boy and his mother doesn't date, let alone have someone like that, and it's different. Plus he's coming into his own, he's struggling with his own feelings about girls and sexuality and feeling like he doesn't live up to his stepbrother Richard because he's not as masculine as him. Frank and Adele continue to fall deeper and deeper in love and the search for Frank is getting more intense, there's a big reward if you should have a tip that leads to his arrest and when they start talking about going to Canada, Henry becomes worried. He doesn't want to be left with his father and he's angry that his Mom is leaving without him, for Frank. Now Frank isn't a good guy but he still is. Henry has a lot of conflicting feelings about Frank and that's such a characteristic of being that age. You love things one minute and you absolutely hate them the next, you spend so much time figuring out who you are and being angry about what you aren't. Henry is right there and he's struggling so much because people see him as a freak because of his Mom and he has no self-confidence.
Now to the back stories; why is Frank in jail? Did he actually murder someone? Yes, he did. Frank served in Vietnam and went because he wanted to get a degree. However, before he left he had a girlfriend and just before he was scheduled to come back, she started writing him again and he thought it was strange but didn't really think about it too much. This Mandy missus was kind of a skank or a trollop whatever you should want to call her and she got around. Now when Frank got back she met him at the airport and immediately had sex with him at his grandmother's house. Soon after she was pregnant (suspiciously soon) and they were married and living with his grandmother. She had the baby named Frank Jr, who looked nothing like Frank and soon after that he found out that she was cheating on him and wanted to leave him. On the night that she told him this, she laughed at him and told him that she couldn't believe that he thought that the baby was his. He pushed her and she hit her head and died. Now Frank was very invested in Frank Jr, and whispered a lot of hopes and dreams to that child. Said baby was upstairs with his grandmother and he was shocked when he heard the water still running and went upstairs to find grandmother and baby both dead. His grandmother had a heart attack and the baby drowned. So Frank went to jail. He was eligible for parole in two years at the time that he escaped. He never stopped looking for his opportunity to get out.
Adele was a different story, she was a fun loving, full of life, passionate dancer who met Henry's father and fell in love with the way that he could dance. They spent time going across the country and enjoying life but settled down once they realized that Henry was on the way. Six months after Henry was born Adele discovered that she was pregnant again but Henry's father thought that it was too soon and they could not support the baby, so she had an abortion, though she didn't really want to. They started having miscarriages after that and Adele firmly believes that because of the abortion they would never have another child but she gets pregnant and once they get past the danger stage, she believes that she has been forgiven. However, when she has the baby, a girl that they named Fern, she has died, strangled by her umbilical cord. We learn that this is why Adele does not go out in public because she cannot stand to look at babies. Henry's Dad left her and they divorced, he still lives in the house that they lived in with his new family and they have a baby girl named Chloe that is not Henry's sister according to Adele. Henry struggles with this because he does sort of like Chloe.
When the talk of moving to Canada continues, Henry is sent to the library to look for books about the Maritimes because Frank wants to farm. He does find them but he also finds Elanor, an anorexic, bored, nasty thing(but he doesn't realize this until later), whom you as a reader will know is nothing but trouble. She has just moved there, hates her parents, and all she wants to do is go back to the big city, Chicago. She eggs on Henry's anger and he eventually tells her that his mother's boyfriend is the escaped convict and she becomes obsessed with what Henry will do with the reward money because he has to get back at his mother for this. Henry struggles with this, he loves his mother and doesn't want to punish her, but he's angry that he's being left behind.
When he discovers that he's not being left behind, that's a whole different thing. Of course there's anger and resenetment but I think that he does sort of get over it. Not really but he's not completely Holden Caulfield yet. There's hope for Henry. In anger he meets Elanor at the playground and when he refuses to have sex with her, she becomes angry and even angrier when he says that he's not going to report Frank to the police. Henry has been fighting with his mother over his hamster, Joe, who was basically the only friend that he had and they evnetualy decide to take him with them. The next morning when they are going to leave, Joe is found dead and Henry blames his mother for it. In anger he goes to his father's house and is going to tell his father what happens but instead leaves a letter in the mailbox because his father only picks up the mail in the evening. It's raining and a policeman insists on taking him home and when he gets there, there's an awkward encounter because of Frank. Then Evelyn comes over furthering hampering them leaving and with time the police show up. Frank ties them up and then surrenders, knowing full well that he will have way more time to serve. Henry does feel guilty. Adele goes to pieces, meaning that Henry goes to live with his father for some time.
Henry finds himself during the time that he is with his father and realizes that he is good at baseball though he insisted that he wasn't and finds a real passion in cooking especially desserts, which is what Frank loved. When he's in high school, he still looks at perfect families in apartment windows and I guess in a way he is mourning what he would never have because I think he's back with his mother at this point but one night he sees Elanor and realizes that it is this spiteful human being who hates herslef who reportted Frank. But later sees her at a high school party doing cocaine and he feels sorry for her. She seems to carry around a lot of hate.
Henry goes to culinary school and falls in love with a woman, whose name I don't remember, he lsot his virginity to a girlfriend that he had in high school and was glad that it was with someone that he loved. He is in a magazine talking about pie crust and his pies and it leads to the story of Frank without saying that it's Frank. He is then contacted by Frank who has served his time and he wants to know about Adele. When he does get out, him and Adele move up to Maine and Henry, his wife, and their new baby often go up to visit them. Henry talks of how he soothes his daughter when she cries and how he talks to her, how she will know that she is loved.
My Thoughts
I loved this book and people may compare it to Catcher in the Rye but the only similarities that it is has is that it's a coming of age story, Henry is not an out and out liar like Holden or at least he doesn't admit to being it. It's tough to be at that age and see your mother falling in love and to think that she doesn't need you in the way that she did. Henry was struggling so much with himself that yes he lashed out and he told Elanor and was betrayed but he couldn't have known that it would happen. He was naive; because of Adele, because of her fears. He didn't have the experience to know that some people are just plain bitchy. I think Frank is a good person and that you have to feel bad for both him and Adele because they did fall in love and they did lose time togehter but then again they got together in the end. Who doesn't like a happy ending? Because of what happened Henry found himself and yes Adele did break down but she probably would have done that anyway. She later found herself, she worked with seniors and she was good at it. Henry also became closer with his father and understood him a little better! The cycle wouldn't have changed if Frank hadn't shook up their lives and it would be nice to think that they could have run to Canada but honestly, it probably wouldn't have worked, they would have gotten caught and it would be worse because there would be no excuse. As flimsy as it was that Frank had theme coerced, they had the fact that they were tied up and that was enough to keep them out of jail. I loved this book and I think that because I listened to the soothing tones of Wilson Bethel that I was better able to enjoy it. There are just certain books that are easier to listen to than read. Maybe this is one of them! I give this book ten perfect pie crusts out of ten. It's not actually perfect but it was perfect for me.
P.S: Wilson Bethel is Joyce Maynard's child? Poof! Mind blown! D'aww he read his Mommy's book! He's some good boy!
This is the man behind the voice that read me this book. I just pictured this and tried now to drown in my own puddle of drool! <3
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