A Life Affirming Punch to the Gut: Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

It’s been a great summer for northern-suburbs-of-Chicago dysfunctional family fiction.

On the not-too-recent heels of “Wellness” comes Claire Lombardo’s latest, “Same As It Ever Was” — the story of Julia “Jules” Ames, her husband Mark, son Ben and daughter Alma, told through a back and forth between Julia’s childhood through to the present.

This was an easy pickup — I loved Lombardo’s “The Most Fun We Ever Had” and of course, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum almost never disappoint. What surprised me was the near immediate connection I felt to the protagonist. Lombardo has tapped into some genuine mothers’ stories’ artery and it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

Julia’s experience isn’t going to be everyone’s experience — I’m loathe to say it even that closely resembles mine — but there are elements of it that hit so close to home I almost feel the need to double check to see if someone has been creeping in the few journals I kept when my kids were little.

Nearly overwhelmed at the notion she is even lovable, Jules finds herself married and a young mother and not really sure what her next step is when she meets an older, wiser woman in Helen Russo. With her kids grown and advice aplenty, Jules finds in Helen a friend where she had almost none and a companion with which she can talk about her fears of loving her young son too much or not enough. Of feeling like she’s living a life she doesn’t deserve. Of self-destructive behaviors that, when left alone, she succumbs to and thereby nearly destroys her marriage.

(Not gonna lie — at first I thought Helen may be a sociopath. She’s a little too good to be true at first glance. Maybe I’m just jealous. But I digress.)

The latter two-thirds of the novel delve deep into why Jules is the way she is — and dissects from both sides (eventually) the relationship between her and her mother, Anita. Whew, Anita. I swear, no one gets out of growing up and out and onward unscathed. It’s a necessary Come to Jesus moment, forcing Jules to assess her prejudices and assumptions and how they’ve impacted her relationships with her now young adult son Ben, on the verge of marrying and becoming a father; her daughter, Alma, as she prepares to head off to college; and even with her husband, as the scab covering a self-inflicted wound in their marriage comes ripping off, effusing fresh pain into an already chaotic environment.

So much juicy drama, such exquisite writing. Really — it’s an emotional juggernaut, but I couldn’t put it down. At almost 500 pages, it’s not quite a doorstop book but might take more than a weekend to read — but a worthy book club pick for sure.