Volume 37, Number 13 · August 16, 1990
A Home Is Not A House
By Patricia Storace
Family Pictures
by Sue Miller
Harper and Row, 389 pp., $19.95
Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart
by Joyce Carol Oates
Dutton, 405 pp., $19.95
To the Birdhouse
by Cathleen Schine
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 273 pp., $17.95
One hundred and six years ago, Huck Finn lit out for the Western territory to escape domestic life. The high proportion of American novels about family life published in recent years would almost suggest that there is now no place for him to go. An ordinary English family might have a reproduction of a Constable or a Gainsborough in the house; an American family is more likely to have a photograph album. Family Pictures, Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart, and To the Birdhouse suggest each in different ways that the idiosyncrasies of family life are among the few real national common denominators among Americans.
Review, 3688 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |