This sensitive, restrained memoir searches for answers to the most painful of questions: Why would a bright, athletic, seemingly well-adjusted boy like Kathleen Finneran's 15-year-old brother want to take his own life? Sean Finneran's 1971 suicide is the pivotal crisis in The Tender Land, but not the only one. References to a family strain of depressive mental illness sound a warning note; Finneran's maternal grandfather probably killed himself, and her mother is subject to severe bouts of depression that may also have afflicted Sean, whose suicide note reveals a self-hatred that the love of his parents and siblings could not assuage. The author frankly relates her own problems with weight, an inexplicable but irresistible urge to shoplift, and uncertain sexual orientation. But Finneran's precise prose, rich in evocative physical details, convincingly limns an ordinary, generally happy Midwestern family: five children spread over 16 years; a devout, nature- and animal-loving mother; a father who communicated best without words, rooted in "his faith in materials men make of the earth." There are no villains and no answers in this heartbreaking book, which respects the essential mystery of a shattering tragedy and closes with an affirmative message to Sean: "I want to call out your name and tell you, across the tender land, that we have gone on living." --Wendy Smith


From Publishers Weekly
Unforgettable in its restraint and quiet beauty, Finneran's debut memoir lovingly reveals her family's tragic history and her own painful coming of age. Born in the late 1950s into an Irish Catholic family, she and her four siblings had a comfortable life in suburban St. Louis, thanks to her mother's thrifty management and her father's success as a salesman. But depression and suicide ran in the family and the question of what caused her youngest brother Sean's suicide when he was 15 permeates the book as much as it has haunted the Finnerans--Kathleen was also disposed to depression and another sister tried to overdose at age 28. As a self-conscious, overweight child, the author at times felt ignored by her parents. Nonetheless, at a young age she understood the need to protect her mother from sorrow, so she "made up stories." Sadly for the author, her first sexual experience coincided with the night Sean died, making sex and death forever inextricable for her. She found comfort with a woman lover who was her best friend, despite her mother's cautious warning about being "different." Readers will relish Finneran's skill in capturing her characters. "My mother," she writes, "ends each day this way, dusting in the dark, and in the morning, as soon as she wakes, she dusts again, in daylight." To Sean's suicide note, which disclosed teenage loneliness and disappointments, Finneran offers an exquisite counterpoint in the form of this love letter. (June) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Finneran, the middle child in an Irish Catholic family residing in St. Louis, presents a loving portrait of her family. Nine years separate Finneran from her next youngest sibling, Sean. Finneran transports the reader to various points in her family history, moving effortlessly between years and related events in clear and detailed writing. The Finnerans exist as a loving yet unremarkable family until Sean's suicide at age 15. Finneran's portraits of Sean, her other siblings, her parents, and herself in the wake of Sean's death are notable for their honesty and emotion. She details her own struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts while trying desperately to shoulder the burden of her brother's sudden death. The result is an absorbing and thoughtful memoir and an outstanding first book. Highly recommended.-Dianna White, OCLC/WLN Pacific Northwest Svc. Ctr., Lacey, WA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


USA Today
"...a penetrating account of family life that promises to give readers insight into their own relationships."


From Booklist
Just after Christmas in 1982, when he was 15, Finneran's younger brother, Sean, killed himself by taking an overdose of their father's heart medicine. Finneran's story, though, is essentially a love story of a family whose offhand tenderness and care for one another cannot be obliterated, not by depression, not even by death. There were five Finneran children growing up in St. Louis, Sean and Kelly much younger than the other three. A strain of what their mother calls "sadness" ran through the family, easily recognizable in these Prozac-saturated times but heartbreaking nonetheless. Finneran spirals stories of her sweet, affable brother--his devotion to their little niece; his affinity for all small creatures--with the deadly darkness that descended on him after a humiliating moment on the school basketball court. Her parents and her siblings come vividly into view in the kind of stories people tell about one another around the kitchen table. Love, faith, prayer, the terrible congruence of sex and death--literal in Finneran's case--make a kind of memento mori like no other. If Sean is an angel, as his mother believes, he is surely alight with the joy of his sister's devotion and her own victory over the demons he knew. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
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Review
"The Tender Land is a strikingly original, formally dazzling family mystery. I've read very few contemporary novels that can rival Finneran's nonfiction. She's totally got the chops." --Jonathan Franzen

FROM THE PUBLISHER