The Birthdays: A Novel - Hardcover

Heidi Pitlor has portrayed her characters perfectly. She has limned them so well that we know about where they will be on Joe's 76th birthday--at least emotionally. Daniel, the eldest, is a recent paraplegic, still coming to terms with his personal tragedy. His wife, Brenda, is pregnant through the services of a sperm donor, and Daniel is obsessed about who he is, what he looks like, and any detail he can imagine about him. He feels unmanned enough by his accident; now he is going to be the putative father of his wife's child with this stranger. Jake, the middle child, at whose home the festivities take place, is a roaring success in the world's eyes: great houses, lots of money, good job, the respect of his peers--but his wife needed in vitro fertilization to conceive and now she is pregnant with twins. His childhood neediness has never disappeared, despite his accomplishments. He is prescriptive, critical, petulant, and his wife has lost interest in sex. He is not exactly a charming host, though he tries. Hilary, the youngest, still a flower child at 35, is six months pregnant and has no clue who the father is. Her brothers are not unaware of how easy it was for the irresponsible, non-planner, barely able to care for herself, to conceive a child. Fecundity abounds, however arrived at.

As everyone straggles in, Joe's wife, Ellen, is filling her time fantasizing about their friend, MacNeil, over whom she has created such a personal and intimate scenario that she goes to the telephone and calls him, much to his confusion. It is a telling moment, one of several "epiphanies" showing the reader the way to each character's interior landscape.

An event takes place which saddens everyone and changes the dynamic of the event and of all the people involved. Arrangements are made that were unthought of at the beginning of the birthday celebration, most of which are more authentic than the roles they brought with them. There are big themes examined here: aging, parenthood, letting go, fertility, illness, and one's place in the universe of the family. Heidi Pitlor does a terrific job of making us care about a group of people who seem, at first blush, to be only selfish and solipsistic. --Valerie Ryan