A Family Divided
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Part 1 Family histories developed. Molly came from an early wave of colonialism in America. English ancestry. Maury a latecomer; his parents arrived from Ukraine in 1919. Their disparate backgrounds lead to misunderstandings and also a healthy respect for each other’s cultural traditions. However, Molly’s mother shows prejudice toward Maury. The Shaws deal effectively with this. After WW II, Maury leaves the army and meets up with two friends and forms a joint business enterprise. It fails and family moves to Philadelphia. The family grows. Four kids born. Billy, the second child and main character, makes friends and has adventures that help shape his personality and character. Parents have major conflict due to revealing of father’s infidelity. Mother kicks father out of family home. He disappears from children’s lives. Part 2 Family goes through five years of turbulence. Mother becomes an angry alcoholic. Billy goes through a destructive and rebellious phase. He and sibs worry about their mother. They fear social service intervention into the family and being placed in foster homes. Mother begins to turn her life around. She obtains a job and stops drinking. Family problems diminish. Billy feels a sense of hopefulness about the future. Billy borrows his mother’s car, goes driving with brother Matt. Billy drives too fast; car crashes into a tree. Matt dies. Billy goes to hospital for minor injuries. He becomes acutely depressed, drops out of school, quits job, stays at home, won’t leave.
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About the Book
Tina and Maurice Shaw meet in the turbulent days of World War 11. They fall in love and marry before Maury joins the Medical Corps in France. When they return to the States, the couple move to a small town in Pennsylvania with Maury’s two Army buddies. The bowling alley they jointly purchase fails, and Maury finds a sales job in Philadelphia. The couple has four children and the young family flourishes. But Tina discovers Maury’s infidelity and they undergo a contentious divorce. Three of the children, Billy, Darlene and Matthew, reside with their mother, who goes through a dark period of alcohol dependence, and neglects her children. Are the siblings able, using their own resources, to weather the crisis? After several trying years, Tina rises out of despair and the family goes through a healing process. Billy becomes attached to a band of teenage friends and they go on risky and comic adventures. Billy earns his driver’s license and he and Matt go for a joy ride, with tragic consequences. Drowning in guilt, Billy loses the will to live. He isolates himself from everyone, until he receives a letter from his estranged father, inviting him for a visit. The young man embarks on a journey, not sure whether he wants to have any kind of relationship with a man he views as selfish and a failure as a parent. Will the reunion lead to strife or rapprochement? Reaching an answer, Billy returns to his mother’s home with renewed purpose and resolve to place the family tragedy in the past and get on with his life.