Little Known Facts by Christine Sneed

Published by Bloomsbury USA on February 12, 2013 

Little Known Facts is a character-driven novel, of interest primarily for its structure. The focus is on past and present members of a family, one of whom is a famous actor named Renn Ivins. He has a son named Will and a daughter named Anna. Their mother, Lucy, is a pediatrician and Renn's first ex-wife. His second ex-wife, Melinda, has the novel's most distinctive voice. The chapters (some written in the first person, others in third person) provide differing perspectives of the family members.

Renn's son sets the stage. The less photogenic Will has always been a bit aimless, lost in his father's shadow. He might go to law school, might not. He doesn't need to work and shows little ambition to do so, but he doesn't want people to think of him as living off his father's wealth -- which he is. He worries (with good reason) that his girlfriend is with him only because his father is a celebrity.

We then hear from Lucy, who met Renn in college and, fifteen years after their divorce, can't get past her lingering bitterness about Will's infidelity. Fortunately, her resentment does not make her unlikable. Her honesty serves to humanize her, to gain the reader's empathy, as does her disappointment with, and concern for, Will.  Melinda resolves her own issues with Renn by writing a tell-all book, some of which turns up in the novel. At least superficially, Anna is the most well-adjusted character -- she's succeeding in medical school -- notwithstanding her interest in a married doctor.

We learn about Renn not just from his ex-wives and children but from an autobiography he's writing. Christine Sneed adds additional perspectives on Renn in a fairly inconsequential chapter written from a propmaster's point of view, a man who comes across as a harmless stalker, and in a chapter devoted to Elise, the young actress who the latest object of Renn's affections. Elise's perspective also encourages the reader to see Will in a different light.

The depth of the characters and the quality of Sneed's prose kept me reading Little Known Facts, but I can't say that the story is engrossing or even particularly noteworthy. The first third of the novel is interesting but uneventful. A moment of family drama is revealed near the midway point, another about two-thirds of the way in, and another near the end, but this isn't a plot-driven novel. It's a novel about people's lives, how they perceive themselves, and how they are perceived by others. Little Known Facts could have gone in the direction of Hollywood soap opera and melodrama -- it certainly has the plot elements that are associated with a cheesy soap -- but whenever it leans in that direction, Sneed uses the conflict to present perceptive views of troubled personalities.

With so many different characters commenting upon each other, the reader has the opportunity to sift through the perspectives, to draw conclusions about where the truth lies when opinions differ. Is Renn shallow and vain or is he worldly and caring? Some of the characters have a more flattering view of themselves than is held by those who know them, while other characters judge themselves more harshly than they are judged. Most of the characters suffer from at least a degree of hypocrisy. Little Known Facts reminds us that we rarely see ourselves in the way others see us, and that no two people see us in the same way.

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