Host Overstays Welcome

Many an aspiring writer has heard the sage advice to "write what you know." It is evident that Cambridge native Mameve Medwed is doing just that in her latest novel, Host Family. She knows Cambridge well. Very well. So well, in fact, that she has laid out every detail of it for the reader. From the Loeb to Mr. Bartley's to Pennypacker to Brattle Street, nothing is left to the imagination. If you're looking for subtlety, Host Family is not the book for you.

Medwed tells the story of Daisy Lewis, a middle-aged Harvard mom and Star Market ombudsman who has long served as a host family to Harvard's international students. When Daisy's husband, Henry, ends their marriage after changing his name to Henri and taking a fancy to all things French (including the Lewis' latest student), Daisy's comfortable, familiar life is turned upside down. Fear not for poor Daisy, though-less than 24 hours later she has already met a new man, a parasitologist named Truman Wolff. Ironically, Truman's daughter, Phoebe, is dating Daisy's son, Sammy, leading to a whole series of plot twists that give new meaning to the term symbiosis.

Medwed tries to portray the new American family, with all of its connotations and inconsistencies, but in the end offers nothing more than a superficial, unsatisfying story, lacking in realism. Every "crisis" and action is sugar-coated. Consider, for example, Sammy's response to the news of his parents' divorce: "Mom, most of the kids I know have families that divide and multiply like-well-like the amoebas we study in biology. It's pretty common. Plus, we've been analyzing family structure in Intro to Psych." Who said that classes weren't applicable to real life? Sammy Lewis has certainly gotten his money's worth out of a Harvard education this term.

Furthermore, Medwed's characters lack depth. Daisy, Truman and Henry all speak and act with much the same voice, and as a result blur into one non-distinct personality. The only truly distinct personas are, in fact, the international students, by virtue of the fact that Medwed blatantly exploits them through their ethnic stereotypes. There's an Italian lover, a pert, fashionable Francaise and a few Asian guys who speak broken English, wear black leather jackets and play video games. Perhaps the most insulting portrayal, though, is that of the Lewises' first student, an Indonesian named Pilombaya who is illustrated as entirely ignorant and is compared repeatedly to a whiny child.

Host Family works very well as a beach novel-the kind of book that serves well as a fast read, mild entertainment to pass the time. It's an interesting story, but there's not enough there to stretch over 300 pages. Still, if you can tolerate Medwed's sometimes grating style-her metaphors are either clichs (the rejected wife is compared to numerous broken down appliances) or are awkwardly creative ("She's followed the blue equivalent of the yellow brick road and has landed at her own fully personalized Oz")-you many get a laugh out of the ridiculous situations she writes about. Anyone in search of a thoughtful character study or emotional investment will come up short, though, as Medwed overtly explains everything that the reader could otherwise conclude on his own. Host Family has an interesting premise, but never takes it to a captivating level. At one point in the novel, Henry Lewis says to Daisy, "You always settle for less." He could have been talking to his own creator.

HOST FAMILY

by

Mameve Medwed

Warner Books

309 pp., $24

by

Mameve Medwed

Warner Books

309 pp., $24