Blog Tour Review: Pam of Babylon – Susan Jenkins

Pam Smith is a Long Island housewife who spends her weekdays preparing for her husband Jack to return every weekend from the city. Their life is a perfect picture of American success, comfort, and the love of family and friends. Then, on a Saturday that seems no different than any other, tragedy strikes and Pam faces the greatest challenge of her previously charmed life. A riveting plot, shocking twists, and almost unbearable tension mark Suzanne Jenkins’ debut, a heart-wrenching examination of lives suddenly and irrevocably torn apart. On his routine weekend trip home, Jack has a heart attack on the train and Pam soon finds herself on a trip to identify his body. Theoretically, this should give her some form of closure, but instead it is the moment her life takes an unexpected trip down the rabbit hole of intrigue and past sins come shockingly to life. Pam must confront a series of revelations that unmask a life she realizes she only thought she knew, and the losses and disappointments she discovers give color and understanding to a man markedly different than he appeared. Uncovering secrets and betrayals far worse than her most vivid nightmare, Pam retreats to their meticulous Babylon beach house, the one refuge she has to put the pieces of her life together and move toward ultimate forgiveness. A fascinating, multiple point of view character study about confronting mistakes and omissions in life, Jenkins’ novel demonstrates the devastating consequences of our actions and how they can reverberate through generations. But it is through forgiveness that Pam finds redemption and strength, eschewing the option of victimization for one of power and, ultimately, personal peace. Affecting in its fast pacing and spare, evocative prose, Pam of Babylon is a powerful reminder for us all to strive to be better people.

Series:  Pam of Babylon #1
Release Date:  June 14, 2011
Publisher:  Createspace
Source:  Pump Up Your Book Tours
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

When I read the blurb for this book, I thought it was going to be an interesting read into how a family deals with the aftermath of death and infidelity.  Instead, what I found were three women who were affected by Jack’s indiscretions and none of them acted the way I would have thought they would given the circumstances.

Pam Smith lives the idyllic life out in Long Island.  She has her fabulous beach house, two wonderful children and her husband of 20+ years.  She lives for her husband and her children while being sequestered away from all of them.  But her somewhat naive life starts to crumble when her husband, Jack, has a heart attack on the train to Long Island.  With Jack gone, Pam soon discovers that she really didn’t know the man she was married to or the depth of his betrayal.

So Pam spent all her time in Long Island.  She read books on her veranda, walked the beach, worked out in the gym and was ran errands for whoever in her family needed them run.  She only spent the weekends with her husband and even then, she would sit off by herself while he was active with her little sister, their kids or his friends.  So it’s not surprising to find that Pam has no clue as to what Jack was really up to when he was in New York all week.  What was surprising was the fact that Pam hardly showed any emotion to Jack’s death or the revelation that he’s been cheating on her (with a woman slightly older than their kids who works in his office and her little sister).  Given everything, I would have expect some kind of outburst from Pam, but she never did it.  Instead she embraced her husband’s mistress and wanted to be friends with her.  WHAT?!?!?

And let’s talk about the mistress.  Sandra admits that she’s not sure she was ever really in love with Jack, which was evident by the fact that she wouldn’t allow him in her house or vice versa, so that her living area wasn’t tainted by Jack should they break up.  But what I’m still trying to wrap my head around is the fact that she would be willing to be friendly with the wife of the man she was sleeping with.  Why would she want that?  Would she feel horrible each time she saw her?  Was she looking for a mother figure and figured she was as good as any?  And why was she not a little more upset about finding out that Jack had a previous long term relationship with someone else?  I’m not sure, but even if you’re the current mistress, don’t you get a little upset when you find out he was less than truthful about his past discretions?

And then there was Maria.  She was the only one of the three woman who reacted like I would expect someone to grieve Jack.  She flipped out, she snapped on people, and was just downright messy.  Maria had some severe emotional scars when it came to Jack, but it she doesn’t seem to have the capacity to deal with them herself or the foundation within her family to support her.  Even after Pam found out about the long term affair, she sent Maria off to her room like a misbehaving child and went about being self-absorbed.

I get that people handle a situation in a different way, but all three of these women seemed so one dimensional that it was hard to feel sorry for any of them for what they were going through.  While they all were supposed to have cared for Jack in some way shape or form, their reaction to his death and lies should have illicit some kind of strong reaction.  Get pissed, scream, yell…throw something (hell, when I spill something on the kitchen floor my reaction is stronger than these women’s).

We get some idea of the type of person Jack was by the reminiscing of the woman or the discovery of more of his secrets.  The only thing I can say is I wish Jack had stuck around in the story because those were the only points in the story where I felt we had an actual character that I wanted to follow.  He had a horrible childhood and endured unspeakable acts against him, yet it appeared (through some of the items discovered and his mother’s musings) that he was willing to stand up for himself and what he believed in.  So that would lead me to question why he went down the path that he did with the three woman.  Unfortunately, that is a question we don’t get answered in this installment of the series.

I wish I could really like this book, but the way the three women were portrayed makes them unlikable to me.   I tend to not be sympathetic to anyone who doesn’t stand up for themselves and that’s the way these women seemed to me.  However, this is my opinion and someone else may love these woman.  It’s for that reason that I’m giving this a three Cocktails rating.