Apologize, Apologize!

From Barnes & Noble

This richly eccentric, beautifully written novel marks the debut effort of Canadian novelist Elizabeth Kelly. Her first fiction centers itself around young Martha's Vineyard native Collie Flanagan, whose native helplessness is perhaps signaled by his name, a token of his parents' favorite dog breed. Collie's parents are a classic mismatch; a philandering, alcoholic father and a cantankerous, perhaps slightly unbalanced mother. Other family members seem almost equally dysfunctional. In this complex stew, Collie somehow maintains his equilibrium after a rapid-fire succession of tragedies leaves him sputtering, almost unhinged. Apologize, Apologize! tracks an unconventional character in an unconventional, unforgettable way.

Ron Charles

As described in Kelly's deliciously witty prose, these are people you can't imagine living with, but can't resist reading about…[Apologize, Apologize! is] good enough to overcome its flaws and witty enough to make us want more from Kelly.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Collie Flanagan's life is part Grey Gardens and part The Royal Tenenbaums in this beautifully written if unwieldy dramedy debut. Raised on Martha's Vineyard, Collie is the dull link in his flamboyant family: his adulterous, alcoholic father and cruelly pugnacious mother maintain a miserable relationship that overshadows even the overblown personalities of his pigeon-racing uncle and his prep-school failure brother. As storms of irresponsibility rage, Collie lives in quiet, stable success until a one-two punch of family tragedy leaves him reeling. Collie's relationship with his media magnate grandfather becomes contentious as Collie spins out of control and tries wildly different ways to make restitution and become a man. Kelly is a gifted writer (Collie's mother attacks with a "verbal pitchfork. Before the night was over, just about everyone in the place had sprung leaks, blood and champagne spurting from all those glamorous human fountains"), but her chops as a novelist aren't as refined: Collie is as pallid as the other characters are unbelievable, and though the crazed drama keeps the story moving, it's often incredible. Though hampered by these weaknesses, Collie's quest is worth reading for the elegant prose alone. (Mar.)

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Library Journal

Canadian journalist Kelly's debut novel introduces the boisterous, reckless Flanagan clan, consisting of young Collie Flanagan, his womanizing father, his unstable mother, his incorrigible brother, his pigeon-racing uncle, and his media-mogul grandfather, who supports the family financially. This rollicking, cinematic tale reaches its denouement with a double tragedy that brings the volume down a few notches. Narrator Jeff Woodman (Going Global) voices Collie, the story's wry narrator, capturing both his youth and his skepticism. Recommended. [Audio clip available through www.highbridgeaudio.com; the Twelve hc was recommended "for larger libraries that showcase new authors," LJ 9/1/08.—Ed.]—Carly Wiggins, Allen Cty. P.L., Fort Wayne, IN

Kirkus Reviews

Dave Eggers fans should enjoy Canadian journalist Kelly's rambunctious first novel about the guilt-ridden scion of a super-rich, eccentric Martha's Vineyard family. Collie Flanagan is the angst-ridden narrator of his family's history. Mom is Anais Flanagan, an eccentric, perhaps insane Marxist who despises her father Peregrine "The Falcon" Lowell, a WASP publishing baron. Dad is womanizing, alcoholic Charlie Flanagan. Rounding out the ramshackle household is Charlie's pigeon-raising brother Uncle Tom. Collie takes his mother's hatred in stride. She never lets him forget that his birth was the worst day of her life on two counts: his arrival on the same day Kennedy was shot, and his masculine sex. Collie's younger brother Bingo, meanwhile, is a beautiful feckless charmer, and Anais adores him. Early on Collie casually announces that Bingo died twice by the age of 19, setting up the reader's apprehension as Collie delivers a barrage of anecdotes showing the various nutty/drunken/wacky/irresponsible aspects of the Flanagan clan. There are the dogs everywhere, Mom's fixation with Rupert Brooke, the brawls, the meals of nothing but ice cream. After surviving an asthma attack as a child, Bingo becomes something of a terror, a prankster kicked out of multiple schools, but he's still his parents' delight while stolid Collie, a star at Andover and then Brown, becomes his austere grandfather's pet project. Collie gives painful examples of his lack of grit in contrast to wild misbehaving Bingo's personal courage. Then halfway through the novel comes the caving accident. Bingo drowns. Recognizing he couldn't have saved him, Collie, now 19, nevertheless blames himself. So does Anais, who slugs Colliehard enough to break his jaw before dropping dead in maternal grief. The novel becomes a story of Collie's redemption. Through a series of reinventions-student to playboy to idealist (taken captive in war-torn El Salvador) to doctor to pigeon racer-he learns the meaning of courage. As Collie says while Uncle Tom is telling one of his endless stories, "Here it comes-death by anecdote."Agent: Molly Friedrich/Friedrich Agency

Booklist

Listen up, readers . . . Meet the Flanagans, a quasifunctional family that might give Jonathan Franzen pause . . . Kelly is a clever, witty wordsmith with a penchant for apt if over-the-top metaphors that are laugh-out-loud funny.

The Barnes & Noble Review

In the story of the hyper-flawed Flanagans, whimsy and melodrama come crashing together. What might be frothy in lesser hands becomes, in those of Elizabeth Kelly, remarkably rich. Collie, named for the dog breed, is born into a family as wealthy as it is nuts, in a sprawling house on Martha's Vineyard. Nine months later, another son arrives, a charming rapscallion beloved by all. Rather than parent, their "professionally Irish" dad elevates drinking into high art, while their mom attempts to illustrate why her own imperious father deserves to be hated, complete with charts. Practical, with a predilection for self-awareness, poor Collie earns his mother's scorn (she calls him "good little comptroller") and his grandfather's admiration. Then an accident recalibrates the dynamics, and suddenly Collie's no longer just the family's straight man.

Since nobody could be harder on this young man than he is on himself, his struggles have a relatable poignancy even as the plot tends toward the outrageous. Nevertheless, Kelly's sparkling writing in Apologize, Apologize! keeps it all going: a character has "red hair shining like his personal sunset," someone else looks like "an effete fugitive from Wallis Simpson's id." Attempting a life lesson, in a speech worthy of a Wes Anderson movie, Collie's dad remarks, "[S]ometimes this I-slash-me business just gets you down." Who could disagree? Like her filmic counterpart, Kelly recognizes that beneath feigned simplicity, burnished irony, or even operatic antics often resides a wellspring of true feeling. This charismatic debut taps into it, and leaves it behind.

--Jessica Allen