My apologies for being gone so long! Life intervenes. I always planned to be back, and I could not miss out on a new Lee Matthew Goldberg book.
The Great Gimmelmans
By Lee Matthew Goldberg
The Great Gimmelmans is a wonderful blend of a twisted heist story and a moving tale about family.
I’ve read a number of Lee Matthew Goldberg’s books and enjoyed every one. He takes a wonderfully skewed point of view of a plot and weaves a fascinating story about it.
Aaron is on a long car ride with his troubled son. Aaron had written a book about his own troubled youth and played the audiobook to share his own childhood problems. Flashbacks take readers to the Gimmelman family’s financial devastation in the 1987 stock crash. The family – Dad Barry, Mom Judy, 16 year old Steph, 12 year old Aaron, and youngest child Jenny. After Aaron steals from a convenience store, Barry starts stealing. He keeps adding family members to his scheme and planning bigger heists, ultimately including the entire family in bank robberies.
Goldberg uses this odd premise to weave a compelling tale. He explores the complex relationships between children and parents, showing how deeply children of all ages seek parental approval. His characters get pushed to extremes in the guise of family, with each reaching their own point where family loyalty is replaced with accepting responsibility for their actions.
The Great Gimmelmans is an enjoyable and thought-provoking book that I heartily recommend.
Thank you to Black Tide Book Tours and Level Best Books for providing me a review copy of the book. Opinions expressed in this view are mine.
