Alice Nelson

The Children’s House is Alice Nelson’s third book: her first was a novel called The Last Sky (2008), which was followed by After This: Survivors of The Holocaust Speak (2015). I haven’t read The Last Sky, but based on its blurb and my reading of After This, (see my review) it seems to me that Nelson is drawn to the melancholy. She writes about exile, displacement, abandonment, loss and survival.

Just as After This chronicled the hope and healing of Holocaust survivors, The Children’s House concludes on an optimistic note. But what lies at the heart of the novel is the contrast between the helping professions and the power of love. The story is peopled by damaged characters: two children raised in the impersonal world of an Israeli kibbutz and then by a mother too remote to offer love; a boy scarred by his mother’s abandonment when new love took her to the other side of the Atlantic; a Rwandan refugee traumatised by rape and her sad little boy; and an elderly nun uprooted from her community as she cares for the other nuns dying around her. The unexpected irony of the characterisation is that one of the central characters is a child psychotherapist, specialising in traumatised children. Jacob is a good man —good-hearted as his mother says— an exiled prince who had succumbed to living in Harlem only because his wife wanted it, and a man who spends long hours helping children whose lives have run aground in some way or another. And yet, when his wife Marina is drawn into a relationship with refugees Constance and little Gabriel, Jacob discourages it. His care and concern is compartmentalised into working hours, and he has no faith in the power of love for healing.

Marina, who is childless after a decade of marriage, is an historian. She has written a successful book about the Romany, and is researching for a new book on Hasidic Jewry. She and Jacob have a quiet but loving marriage, depicted in lyrical detail. Marina, adrift after the death of her only brother and the disappearance of her mother, has been welcomed into the orbit of Jacob’s family: she has affectionate bonds with her mother-in-law Rose and Jacob’s sister Leah. Though she has no religion, the rituals of the Friday night family Shabbat ground her and they come together as a family at Christmas too. Everyone in that family accepts the presence of the implacably silent, withdrawn Constance and the unloved little boy, except for Jacob, who gravely tells Marina that she will damage him and that she is meeting her own needs, not the child’s.

This conflict between the protagonists is muted...

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The Children’s House is a strong, character driven story that reveals the deepest emotions of its characters in a quietly powerful way. I wasn’t expecting the story to be as compelling as it was, but it sucked me in rather quickly! Alice Nelson has a way of drawing the reader into the world of her characters, seating you at the dinner table, in the study…wherever they go. The story discusses mothers in all forms – from those desperate to love to those who appear to be desperate to leave.

Marina, the main character, falls into the former category. She has been married to Jacob for many years, but they never had children of their own. Marina dotes on Jacob’s son Ben from his first disastrous marriage. Ben is now grown up and is undergoing a quiet rebellion of his own – away from college, stacking shelves and newly single. Both she and Jacob worry for Ben but accept that he must make his own decisions. Overall, the family is closely knit and supportive. Jacob and Marina were both born on a kibbutz in Israel, but his mother’s story of how they came to be there (and leave again) is completely different to that of Marina’s mother. Gizela was always a closed book to Marina and his brother. They know little of her history and spend their childhood trying to get to know their mother, who stubbornly refused. Gizela has been gone for years and it has left a question hanging in Marina’s life.

Marina is a good soul. She’s caring, interested and both notices and questions the world around her. So, it’s not surprising that Gabriel and his mother Constance come to her attention one day in the neighbourhood. Gabriel throws a tantrum, and Constance walks away. Marina swoops into rescue Gabriel and at that moment, a strange connection is established. Constance is from Rwanda and is likely to have suffered during the war. (She reveals very little). Gabriel is her son – but not. He feels foreign and not really hers. But it’s to Marina that Constance turns to when she needs help and soon Marina is heavily involved. Jacob thinks it’s all too much, but Marina can’t seem to let go. The juxtaposition of Marina wanting to give love and demonstrating it in comparison to Constance is striking. We never quite find out why she is so distant, although Marina researches to find out more about life in Rwanda in the 1990s. Yet cold as Constance is, you can’t hate her as a character. You can feel the something missing, the shock of a life turned upside down. Likewise, Marina doesn’t appear ‘goody-goody’ or desperate. She is aware she may be stepping over boundaries but makes a conscious decision to do so, whether that be with Constance or Ben.

Alice Nelson’s writing sings with skills. The nuances of characters are subtly written and realistic. They all feel fleshed out, flawed and alive. The stories of life of the kibbutz were an eye opener to me. I didn’t realise the ideologies involved or the grouping of the children into the one children’s house. It was rather shocking! These scenes also nicely reflected how Constance and one of the other characters, Alma, felt being in a foreign land. The excitement of the new and the scariness of the unknown…it all makes for an emotive, gripping read.

Thanks to Penguin for the copy. My review is honest.

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