Review of THE PRECIOUS JULES by Shawn Nocher (New Release)

 4.5 Stars

This family drama kept my interest throughout because it is so authentic.

Ella Jules has spent 32 years of her life, since the age of 8, in the Beechwood Institute whose clients are intellectually challenged.  Lynetta, who has been her caregiver for all that time, has applied to be her guardian because the institute is closing.  Then Ella’s parents, Hillary and Stone, file with the courts to have Ella live with them.  On a weekend when Ella is to come for a visit and overnight stay, the five adult Jules children (Jax, Belle, George, Finney, and Tess) arrive at the family home to persuade the parents that having Ella live with them  is not a good idea. 

The Jules family seems perfect.  They are all good looking:  “All that blond hair and blue eyes, their collective athleticism . . . [Lynetta] couldn’t help but wonder if she had walked into a Ralph Lauren photoshoot.”  The Jules are “a moneyed family” whose home is a large house in a wealthy Baltimore neighbourhood; as Belle drives to the house she thinks it feels “like coming home to a Norman Rockwell painting.”  But Belle knows that the “picture of perfection” is deceiving:  “what the world saw of the Jules family hid something deeper.”  Each of the family members is flawed and has struggles and secrets. 

Ella’s removal from the family has affected everyone.  Guilt is a common emotion.  For example, Belle, as Ella’s twin, has “the sense that she has escaped something by virtue of a tragically consequential coin toss.”  Jax says that it’s his fault that Ella was sent away while George is certain “it was his own fault”.  The trauma of Ella’s institutionalization affects the decisions and choices characters make.  George’s wife has an eating disorder but he refuses to place her in an inpatient program, worried about how her absence would affect their daughters.  Similarly, Belle hesitates to place one of her sons in a different school which will address his unique leaning needs because she doesn’t want to separate siblings.  Gradually, as we learn the motivations of all the characters, we come to understand that “They all have scars from Ella, of one kind or another.”

The point of view is very effective in developing characters.  The perspective of each family member is given, as is that of Lynetta.  As a consequence, we understand everyone’s true feelings and motivations.  And there is no difficulty differentiating among the siblings.  For instance, it does not take long to understand that George is resentful and angry because of a childhood incident whereas Finney is more sympathetic because he himself feels “he didn’t fit into the world” just as Ella’s parents seem to want to wedge her “back into this family, shoved to fit in a space that no longer conforms to her.”

It is an outsider that best understands the family’s problem.  Clarissa, a longtime family friend, sees that they each carry “the burden of useless guilts” and so much could be solved if they communicated:  “The problem . . . was everything that had not been said, all the pain that had been privately hoarded by each one of them rather than weighed and divided equally.  This family . . . carried seven times, eight times the pain that should have been allotted each one of them.  They could . . . take all they know, all they carry, and unload it amongst one another, sort through it carefully, dispose of that which held no meaning or truth or consequence.” 

I enjoy novels with dynamic characters, and there is an indication that the family learns that secrets can have detrimental effects and there is comfort in opening up and unburdening oneself of secrets.  (I was reminded of the author’s debut novel, A Hand to Hold in Deep Water, which also examines the effects of secrets and how they lead to misunderstandings.)  It is also heartwarming to see the Jules family stop seeing Ella as “disappointment and tragedy, heartache.  They see imperfection, something lost.”   They come to see her like Lynetta does:   “a jewel of nature, a precious jewel.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It is heartbreaking, heartwarming, and thought provoking. 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.