An exasperating novel. The author has gone out of her way to construct something that destroys her story. Yes, it's literary fiction, and the characters are more important than plot, but does that have to mean that we have to abandon basic story-telling truths? She skips around in time, something that can be done while heightening suspense and story, but not in this case. The third act occurs in the middle of the book, not at the end, destroying the novel, in my humble opinion.
And she uses multiple viewpoints, including omniscient, third person, and first person. In many cases the pov character is not revealed for pages. There is no excuse for jerking around the reader like that.
A proven method of skipping around in time is to use "time streams". Each stream is followed chronologically, while still alternating between streams. The main stream should have been the youngest child as a young adult, dealing with the death of the father. The other streams of the father as a young man, the children as adolescents and so forth, are then alternated with the main stream, but preserve the integrity of that main stream so that the story is not ruined.
OK, so I'm on my soapbox. After reading almost thirty National Book Award finalists I am beginning to believe that this award is based on politics, not merit. I am certainly more impressed with the Pulitzers.
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