For the characters in Jon Raymond's third novel, Freebird, decisions are difficult to come by, but when they're made, it's in a flash, regardless of forethought. The novel revolves around the Singers, a modern Jewish family in Los Angeles. "They were Californians above all else," untethered by tradition and the certainty it affords.
Anne Singer, a single mom working in government, is approached by a charismatic entrepreneur for help developing a plan to buy up the city's wastewater. While handwringing over the ethics of this, she contends with her aging father, Sam, a laconic Holocaust survivor, and her slacker son, Aaron, who wishes that "fate might intervene and decide his future for him without any conflict or choice or rejections on his part at all." Slipping through the cracks is Anne's brother Ben, a Navy SEAL alone in the desert, dogged by PTSD and an instinct for action. The Singers pursue their own private needs to conclusions that are funny and devastating. Even Anne, who prides herself on being savvy, ultimately succumbs to life's irrational forces.
Raymond (The Half-Life), who has also written for film and TV, rotates among characters, zipping through their stories in clear prose and a casual tone that adds incisiveness to the satire, but which occasionally robs more fraught scenes of their emotional heft. The finale feels attenuated, laden with references to songs and lyrics. That's forgivable, though. Freebird is ultimately a binge-worthy novel, lightly satirical and compulsively readable. --Zak Nelson, writer and bookseller