A Family Daughter

John Murray Publishers, London, 2006. Creased spine, pages beginning to yellow, otherwise good secondhand copy.

One of the most insightful novels about families to appear in recent years, A Family Daughter revisits the Santerre clan from Maile Meloy's highly acclaimed debut novel Liars and Saints. It opens in 1979, when seven-year-old Abby, the youngest member of the close-knit family, is trapped indoors with chicken pox during a heat wave.

The events set in motion that summer span decades and continents -- irrevocably changing the lives of the Santerres and those around them.