The novel Family Drama is a complex family story – dare I say “drama?” – centering around Susan Bliss’ double life as an actress and a mother, and how that double life affected her husband and children in profound ways.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of Family Drama.
Susan Byrne is a struggling actress when she meets Alcott Bliss, a tenured professor at a New England university; they fall in love. Soon she lands a role on LIFE AND TIMES, a soap opera, filmed in Los Angeles, and so begins her double life – as an actress on the west coast and a mother on the east coast.
Family Drama tells the story of Susan and Al, and their twin children Viola and Sebastian, in chapters separated by years and told by different characters. The author, Rebecca Fallon, reveals the full story in pieces, a patchwork quilt of events and facts stitched together through the novel.
I found the non-linear story telling a little difficult to follow at first. I thought about taking notes to create a linear timeline – in this year, Al and Susan meet, in this year the twins are born, etc. – but I think this presentation works well for telling this story. It feels almost like a soap opera itself, with major plot points appearing, trysts hinted at and later revealed, characters appearing and disappearing.
On a personal level, the book hit me a little hard. My first wife Susan, now deceased, shared the same name as the main character, and some of her temperament. This novel brought up some pleasant and not-so-pleasant memories for me. Kudos to the author for making her characters feel very real.
The characters in Family Drama are very compelling and interesting – especially Susan – and I like how the children are treated as equally important characters and not just a side effect of Al & Susan’s marriage.
I wish I could quote from the book – there are some great passages that I marked in my review copy. Again, kudos to the author.
Family Drama is a complex and compelling novel about the bright flame of an actress and a mother, the challenges her family faced, and the consequences of her choices. I really enjoyed it.
You can pre-order Family Drama through Simon & Schuster’s web site. It is scheduled to come out on February 3, 2026.