2 good books

At the heart of The Float Test is the question of how the four Kenner siblings will get on after the unexpected death of their mother. Orbiting around this central question are questions about each sibling. Like, why are Fred and Jude no longer speaking? And is George, the youngest, done-done with his wife no one likes, or is he just in the doghouse? And finally, what is Fred going to do with the gun she found in her mom’s underwear drawer after the funeral?

Told during a typically hot Florida summer, the family will have to find out if an event that might otherwise bring them together will instead be the thing that crystallizes their differences.

In 1980, wealthy businessman Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his own driveway, held for ransom for 5 days, and despite many physical threats during the ordeal, eventually returned intact. The family tries to move on, tries to believe Carl’s mother when she says, This didn’t happen to you, it happened to your body, but Carl shrinks to a shell of himself and 40 years later, his three children are showing the cracks that started during their father’s ordeal.

Nathan’s fear of everything has stopped his ascent at his law firm and led to a hobby of collecting every kind of insurance imaginable, Beamer is a screenwriter who can’t write about anything except kidnapping and uses a slew of substance and sex to cope, and Jenny, once the most promising of the three, has tried so hard to eschew her family’s money that she finds herself staring down the barrel of 40 never really having had a meaningful relationship.

When they find out that the source of their material comfort, the family factory, is on its last legs, they’re forced to confront all the advantages they had, and why their money couldn’t insulate them from the event that defines them.