CJ Hauser’s Family of Origin revolves around Nolan and Elsa Grey, two siblings who head off to Leap’s Island after learning their father, Ian Grey, has drowned in the surrounding waters. Leap’s Island is a tiny island in the Gulf of Mexico that can only be reached by riding the postal boat once a week, where there is no internet access and no contact with the outside world. It is the place their father retired to after he and a group of scientists, who called themselves the Reversalists, discovered a certain type of duck, better known as the bufflehead, was showing signs that evolution is on the reverse and the world as they know it is coming to an end. It’s this outlandish theory that ostracizes them and sends these washed-up scientists to create and live in their own bubble at Leap’s Island, where they focus on studying the bufflehead full-time. Elsa and Nolan are only there to understand the aspects of their father’s death, as Elsa suspects he might’ve killed himself, incited possibly by a shameful mistake made in the past that tore their family apart.
However, as Elsa and Nolan continue to spend time on Leap’s Island, surrounded by an assortment of quirky characters, without internet or any way off the island for a week, they inadvertently become more and more entangled with the bufflehead research. As the story progresses, moving forward and backward through time, they attempt to retrace their memories, trying to better understand the circumstances that led them to become such unhappy adults.
Hauser delves into themes of family, generational differences, and that mortal, infinite quest for a perfect life and untainted happiness. Family of Origin challenges us to contemplate — to understand where we are at any given moment in time — the ways in which we habitually look back and attempt to recall our steps through life in hopes of making things right.
Hidden in Hauser’s narrative, like a furtive wink, are clues reminding us that happiness is not as unattainable as we make it out to be; it is literally all around us waiting to be seized, if only we learn to stop looking behind for our mistakes.
Readers looking for an unusual, though mentally stimulating narrative, who are perhaps also in search of answers about our ever-elusive happiness, will find their particular cup of tea in Family of Origin.