Family Secrets (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Family Secrets


author = Norma Klein
country = USA
language = English
translator =
cover_artist =
genre = Young adult novel
publisher = Dutton Books
release_date = 1985
media_type = Print Hardback
pages = 262
isbn = ISBN 0-8037-0221-3
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Family Secrets" (1985) is a young adult novel written by Norma Klein.

Plot

Leslie and Peter are childhood friends who become lovers the summer before their senior year in high school. Their romance is immediately complicated by Leslie’s discovery—by reading her mother’s diary—that her mother, Aline, and his father, Nelson, are having an affair. Before the summer is over their parents have announced their impending divorces and Leslie and Peter’s lives are thrown in disarray.

The pair spends the next few months of their lives dealing with senior year in high school, the divorces of the parents, and the quick marriage that legally makes them stepsiblings. In addition, Peter is striving for early acceptance at Harvard while Leslie spends much of her time in rehearsal for her high school play for she plans on going to college for acting and drama.

Peter at the start of the school year continues to live with his mother; Nelson moves into a new apartment with his new wife and Leslie. The girl is upset at the new living arrangements because she is close to her father and is angry with Aline for the divorce and quick remarriage. In her struggle to deal with the divorce Peter’s mother decides to sell the family home and move to Chicago to finish her college degree. This forces Peter to move in with his father, stepmother and stepsister/girlfriend. The awkwardness of the situation causes the two to argue and abruptly end their physical relationship—all unbeknown to their parents because the two are keeping their relationship secret.

As the move on with their lives, Peter and Leslie reconcile and renew their intimacy as the new marriage begins to fall apart primarily because of Nelson’s womanizing, although Aline’s emotional neediness is also a contributing factor.

The novel ends with the couple planning a cross country car trip during the summer before they go off to separate colleges. No longer related, they are more comfortable to resume their relationship without the complications imposed by their parents' actions.

Commentary

This novel has been challenged in many schools and public libraries for themes deemed inappropriate for adolescents; in this case, talk about divorce, sexuality and recreational drug use. "Family Secrets" is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number 81. [http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm]

This novel is on the ALA list for many and different reasons. Peter and Leslie have casual sexual relationship that is initially entered when one or both are under the effects of smoking marijuana. Only once is birth control mentioned, and then only in passing as Leslie almost forgets to pack her birth control pills for a trip. Sexually transmitted diseases are never mentioned (though the two characters are virgins when they begin their sexual relationship so the chance of acquiring an STD is remote). Both drink alcohol to excess several times and smoke marijuana. Peter also has to deal with his overeating due to stress. Leslie attends an all-girls school and admires a teacher who actively promotes feminist ideals.

The behavior of the characters can be considered typical of most seventeen-year-olds with permissive parents largely concerned with their own lives. Although somewhat datedFact|date=July 2008 by current (2006) standards, the characters and situations are sharply drawn and the action moves quickly for those who are at a changing point in their lives.

Klein alternates the narrative chapter by chapter between Peter and Leslie, as the book addresses various teen issues: divorce, obesity, feminism, drugs and sex.