Ship Shape Escape: Family Feud Unglued

I was on Amazon when I found a book by an author I'd never heard of.  The book was The Floating Feldmans, the author was Elyssa Friedland, and it caught my eye because of its cover.  I liked the way the characters' faces peeked through the ship portals, my favorite being Mr. Man Bun.

So, I added it to my wish list, and my sister got it for me for Christmas.  Last week I finally tested its waters.  Which is a dramatic way to talk about diving into a book, but you never know with new authors.  Or new anything.  It's like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry takes Bania out to dinner (and lunch) in exchange for a suit and mocks Bania's always-annoying commentary.  That is, if you order your go-to meal, then you know it'll be good but the same.  If you order something new, then you get to have something different, but it might not be as good.  To quote Jerry verbatim, "it's a gamble."  And that's just how I felt before embarking on The Floating Feldmans.  Which is fitting, because the novel's about a cruise and cruises are all about food.  Also disease, not to put too fine a point on it in the current coronavirus climate.

Anyway, the Feldmans are complicated.  You've got overbearing mom Annette and distant dad David with two grown children: overachieving daughter Elise and slacker son Freddie (he of the man bun).  Elise has an overachieving daughter, Rachel, and slacker son, Darius, of her own.  She also has a nice-guy husband, Mitch, making for a neat parallel with her bro's trophy girlfriend, Natasha, who, is also -- you guessed it -- nice!  "Wait a minute," you may be thinking, "How can a slacker dude score such a babe?  Are things -- dun dun dun -- not what they seem?!"  To echo the sound of the ship's casino . . . jackpot!  This family has more secrets than a prostitute's diary, and they all come out on the Ocean Queen.  It's all hands on deck for domestic discord, with jaded cruise director Julian at the helm.  Friedland pulls out every cruise ship cliche, from the passengers duking it out over the soft serve machine to the dorky dad sandals to the overpriced offshore excursions.  And it's hilarious!  Really, the perfect fly-on-the-wall situation where you can soak up all of the laughs and none of the calories -- or ptomaine.  Here are some of my favorite parts:

"How Elise craved that soaring spike in adrenaline that shot pins and needles to her extremities and sent butterflies to her stomach.  She sighed and looked back at her cart, fighting off the urge to calculate.  The total couldn't be much.  She had tossed in maybe eight or nine hardcovers at most, three frozen cakes, a few packages of T-shirts for Darius, and a bunch of sports bras she'd need now that she'd signed up for Class Pass." (11).

Yes, Elise's shameful secret is that she's a shopaholic.  Like Rebecca Bloomwood, but not as much fun and without the rich husband (Elise's better half is a journalist; need I say more?).  One of her more unfortunate splurges is family sweatshirts plastered with Annette's (rather angry) face, which she got on -- wait for it -- Etsy.

Still, all roads lead back to that other over-indulgers' paradise, namely the buffet:

"On average, passengers aboard the Ocean Queen consumed six thousand calories per day, sitting down to no less than five full meals.  The midmorning "snack" consisted of pastries, a full salad bar, and a taco station.  Afternoon tea was the least dainty meal Julian had ever laid eyes on.  Instead of finger sandwiches and bite-sized lemon tarts, the kitchen staff put out twelve-foot loaves of streusel from which the guests could hack off as much as they liked.  And, as far as Julian could tell, they liked a lot of streusel." (2)

"A middle-aged woman wearing a sweatshirt that said I Have No Cruise Control shouted, "Where's my free pizza?  I was told there would be free pizza." (134)

This book is zany.  But it's also a little dark and deep and gives you a look inside that cattiest of cliques: family.  Like the meanest of mean girls, the Feldmans manipulate one another and freeze each other out.  But unlike their middle school monster counterparts, they actually care about one another, a truth that surfaces like filet mignon from a sea of expired bologna.  And that's kind of comforting.  Because although families are never easy, they've always got your back.

Even if that back's wearing a day-glo sweatshirt emblazoned with the matriarch's mug.