Review: Family Money

Family Money by Chad Zunker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Family Money, authored by Chad Zunker, is a prime example of a great idea executed in quite mediocre fashion.

The story is that of Alex Mahan and his father-in-law Joe Dobson, a retired attorney. The two share a unique relationship, forged as Joe stepped into the role of father-figure when Alex’s father died. Alex was just sixteen and had been dating Joe’s daughter, Taylor, and while Alex had always respected Joe, it was the strength he gave to Alex at what was possibly the worst time of the boy’s young life that solidified their bond. Eventually, Alex and Taylor married, and Joe and his wife Carol became the consummate in-laws, then grandparents. When Alex struggled to get his own company off the ground, Joe stepped in and loaned Alex five million dollars in start-up capital. Alex’s success thereafter was something he insisted would never have happened without Joe’s support. When the entire family (Alex, Taylor, their two young daughters, Joe and Carol) travels across the border from Texas to Mexico on a humanitarian mission to assist an orphanage in need of funding and repairs, Joe is kidnapped, in broad daylight on a busy street. Alex then embarks on a journey to discover the truth behind Joe’s disappearance and discovers he may not have known his father-in-law at all. As the story unfolds, Joe’s past unravels and decades-old secrets are exposed.

The plot is clever and takes the reader on a journey through Joe’s life through Alex’s eyes. There were well-delineated flashbacks that made the time travel from present to past seamless. Some of the events, however, stretched my willingness to suspend disbelief and disengaged me from the story. Characters were primarily portrayed as noble and honest—willing to risk not only their careers for one another, but also their lives. In light of the secrets that were revealed, however, there were numerous contradictions in the way those characters responded and behaved. Not only were the characters’ actions completely implausible, so were entire scenes. It’s difficult to provide examples without spoilers, but suffice it to say that I found myself simply shaking my head on more than one occasion and mumbling “he would NEVER do that”, and “you’ve got to be kidding”.

Additionally, the language here is very bland. There are few visuals to bring interest to the story—settings are vague, character descriptions generic and the dialogue is very “run of the mill”, the latter of which was most disturbing. I just didn’t find any character development achieved through dialects, speech patterns, word choice, etc. With the exception of some Spanish phrases, each person seemed to be reading a script that refused to differentiate them. Instead of individuals with unique personalities, Zunker created a collective that moved together through the story. It seemed a very Gestalt way to approach the plot, as the whole became greater than the sum of its parts. The characters were never individuals, they were simply part of the extended Mahan-Dobson family unit, outside of which people were expendable and extraneous.

In the end, the book had its merits, primarily in the storyline. Without strong, well-written characters and lively dialogue to bring it to fruition, however, my final reaction was simply “meh”.

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