The Irresistible Henry House, by Lisa Grunwald

The idea behind this book was irresistible to someone whose sister was a home ec major in the mid-1960s and actually lived in a "practice house" one semester (though I don't think there were "practice babies" involved). A practice house--a home operated by the home economics department of a university, in which young women have the opportunity to practice the skills of homemaking--is at the center of Lisa Grunwald's novel. Martha Gaines is the woman who runs the house at fictional Wilton College. Every two years, a new baby from the local orphanage comes to live at the house; a series of young women learn about child care and development by taking turns taking care of the baby.

Henry House (all the babies are given the last name House and an alliterative first name) is the baby who arrives just as Martha is returning from a year's forced sabbatical. It is 1946, and Dr. Spock has just published the first edition of his book on child care. But Martha's approach is far different from Spock's--the House babies adapt to a rigid schedule, are not picked up when they cry, and in general are not coddled. But Martha falls for the infant Henry and, learning that he is the illegitimate grandchild of the college president, manages to get permission to informally adopt the boy. Living upstairs in the practice house, Henry watches the other practice babies and practice mothers come and go while enduring Martha's rather smothering affections. When his biological mother Betty shows up, he is furious at Martha for lying (she had told him his parents were dead) and Betty for leaving him; he acts out that rage by becoming mute.

The university president insists that Henry be sent to a high school for troubled children. While he regains his voice, he also feels betrayed once again by a faculty couple who befriend him but then are diverted by their own newborn child. Henry runs away to New York to live with Betty, an arrangement that ends when she decides to relocate to Paris. Henry then spends time in LA working on animations for Mary Poppins and in London working on Yellow Submarine. In London he lives with another grown-up practice baby with whom he reconnected at Martha's funeral. Like him, she has a gift for attracting people to her but no skill at making real emotional attachments. By observing her, Henry sees some of his own flaws and decides to return to New York to try to win over his childhood friend Mary Jane, the only person for whom he has genuine feelings.

While this book is enjoyable, it does not have the depth of The World According to Garp, to which it has been compared. The portion of the book in which Henry wanders through iconic cultural moments in LA and London--which provokes comparisons to Forest Gump--is an unnecessarily drawn-out demonstration of Henry's emotional problems. The earlier sections of the book, in the practice house and then at the boarding school, are more rewarding and insightful.

Favorite passage:

Unfortunately, nothing really stood out for me except one pet peeve: Grunwald repeatedly shares insights about characters' motivations/feelings/hang-ups by saying "It was not until years later that Henry would realize..." Example: ". . . it would take years for her to realize that what had provoked Henry was her trying to force him to make a choice." Writing from a child's perspective limits the amount of psychological insight an author can include without rendering the child completely unrealistic--but repeated use of this device is not an effective way around the problem.