I let SCHRODER languish on my bookshelf for years before I finally got to it. I didn't know what I was missing. This is a book I can readily add to my list of favorites.

SCHRODER is more than a story of a divorced man who kidnaps his six-year-old daughter for a week. It is Eric Kennedy's (a.k.a. Erik Schroder's) explanation to his wife not only of what happened during that week and why; this letter to Laura also tells her some of his history that he has been hiding from her all along.

Although the name–change explanation sounds implausible, especially since Eric/Erik got away with it for so many years and never adequately explains how he did that, just go along with it. You'll not only love his story; you'll love the way he tells it. ( )

Did not like this book ( )

Wow, what a book!

Shroder isn't exactly based on the Clark Rockefeller case, but it did serve as a kind of jumping-off point for Amity Gaige, the author. In a Q&A at the end of the book, Gaige says, "the story echoed what I was already wondering about parenthood: can a deeply flawed person be a good (or good enough) parent? What does it take? How would we define that?" And later, she says: "I'm not trying to create a character about which easy judgments can be made, or upon which we can all agree." Eric Kennedy, a.k.a. Erik Shroder, the narrator of her story, serves both of these purposes well, and his perspective on his life and marriage and child is very compelling. As a reader, I couldn't quite condemn him even while cringing at some of the things that he did, and as a mother, it shocked me that I wasn't able to. Although Eric's actions and decisions are (hopefully) beyond the pale for most of us, being inside his not-entirely-unreasonable head for 200 or so pages made me think of this scene from The Big Chill:

Michael: I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.
Sam Weber: Ah, come on. Nothing's more important than sex.
Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

Eric has reasons (or at least rationalizations) for what he does, some good, some bad, but they're the kind of reasons that are hard to evaluate until you've walked the proverbial mile in his shoes. Shroder gives us a fascinating chance to do just that.
( )

Eric Schroder is from Germany. He lives in Dorchester, MA with his father. Since he is from a different country, he feels that he does not fit in. He finds a pamphlet for a summer camp and applies, using the name Eric Kennedy, hoping that the name helps him fit in more. From that point in his life, he uses that name.
He attends college and falls in love with a woman, mostly referred to as "You". They have a child, Meadow. He never goes back to using his correct name.
The marriage falls apart and Eric gets visitation with his daughter and takes a long trip to Vermont, New Hampshire and maybe a run to Canada.
The book is really about Eric learning to know who he himself is. His love for his wife and daughter are really just lackadaisical attempts at knowing about himself. ( )

Schroder is one of the most irritating books I've attempted to read in a long time: narrator Eric Kennedy (né Erik Schroder in East Germany) engages in allegedly true confessions, telling how he came to change his name in America, marry a woman who must have been awfully naive, and kidnap his daughter. I'm always happy to enjoy a story from an obviously unreliable narrator (a.k.a. "a liar") but I found this novel dull, unconvincing, and manipulative in all the wrong ways. ( )