Gatherings

This slight first novel attempts to chronicle the world of overprivileged youth in a sympathetic manner, but fails to generate interest in, much less concern for, the main characters. These include the narrator, Meredith, who describes her life from childhood with a rebellious mother through early adulthood as a student at Columbia University; and her cousins, the spoiled and thoroughly unlikable Pearce and Felicity, who plays the unenviable role of custodian to their emotionally unstable mother. Other members of this seemingly incompetent-at-life family come and go in a narrative that shuttles between the present and the past via flashbacks and reminiscences of earlier generations; the settings include posh tribal dwellings in South Carolina and on an island off the coast of Maine, as well as locations in Connecticut, New York and Washington State. The constant leaps from one place to another, from past to present, from one dysfunctional rich relative to some equally maladapted kin, are off-putting and confusing. (Feb.)