Review: Meet the Newmans

Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

The Newmans, Del, Dinah, Guy and Shep star in a long-running (12 years) TV series as themselves, before that it was a radio series. Del is the mastermind who writes the scripts, directs, and produces with total autonomy, although the sponsors and the network executives insist on reviewing the scripts. But now Guy and Shep are older they are beginning to chafe against their father running their lives. Guy has secretly dropped out of law school, and teenage Shep is drinking, messing around with women, and taking drugs - things his father is having to hush up. Meanwhile, Dinah is experiencing numbness in her arms and Del is worrying about money.

Although a previously beloved tv institution (think I love Lucy meets Happy Days), in 1964 its the era of the Beatles and Martin Luther King, public tastes are changing and the appetite for cutesy family stories where the mother cooks and cleans all day and the father issues a heart-warming homily at the end of each show is wearing thin. The show is up for renewal and the studio is not making encouraging noises.

When Del has a car crash that puts him in a coma, the rest of the family get a chance to grab the reins of their destinies (and much like the finale of Dirty Dancing) do the finale the way they want to do it.

This was written in a very confusing way. Each chapter was set six hours earlier than the last, or two days earlier etc which didn't really make much sense and, if I'm honest, seemed like an attempt to make it seem more intellectual. I did enjoy the historical references but I also found some of the characters seemed to be inserted merely so that they could make speeches about discrimination against different parts of society, rather than because they had a real part to play in the story which felt a bit clunky.

Overall, I enjoyed the read but I was left with the impression that for all the discussion of oppression and the need to conform to societal norms everyone still got a Hollywood HEA.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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