THE FLOAT TEST

In the wake of their mother’s death, a Florida family regroups.

Strong’s fourth novel, set over two recent summer months in a wealthy area of Florida, is defined by an unusual decision: The third-oldest of the four Kenner siblings, Jude, is its omniscient narrator. At one point, there is a parenthetical acknowledgement of how weird this is: “A lot of what I’m saying here I found out later; the rest, as Fred would say, I’ve imagined my way into, because why not.” The reason Fred, short for Winnifred, would say this is that she, the second child, is the writer in the family, and her published books have been the source of difficulty and estrangement. With the story she tells here, Jude is effectively taking back the narrative, describing Fred’s (and everyone else’s) experiences in Florida so intimately that one has to keep reminding oneself that this is Jude’s story and trying to recall which woman goes with which husband or ex-husband, etc., and that Jude is largely offstage in New York. As the novel opens, the children’s mother has had a stroke while running and died two days later. Jude and her youngest sibling, George, come to town for the funeral; George remains at their parents’ house for the rest of the novel. One of the things Jude “found out later” is why he didn’t want to go home to Houston. Another such thing is that at the “party that was not a party” after the funeral, Fred found a gun in their mother’s dresser drawer. The story of this gun, both in the past and the present, is the closest thing the novel has to a throughline, and the suspicion that it must at some point be discharged proves true. Every one of the many characters, including the dead mother, has backstories and subplots and friends and associates. Threaded through it all is bad news about the Floridian landscape and climate that plays little role in the plot.

An abundance of good writing and interesting storylines and environmental information, but not much to tie it together.