Secrets of a Family Album

Scots writer Dewar's seventh novel is a funny, moving portrait of Edinburgh family members struggling to define themselves outside of their intricate network of attachments. Through a journalism assignment interviewing a 1960s feminist icon and photographer, writer Lily discovers that her mother Mattie led an exciting and dangerous life as a rock 'n' roll groupie, and Lily begins to wonder if she has not taken enough chances in her own tightly controlled life. Meanwhile, Lily's sister Marie is struggling as a newly single mom and their brother Rory has just been pressured into marrying his French girlfriend, though he's not at all sure he's ready. And, for the first time in their marriage, retirees Mattie and John are fighting. Each confronts half-formed desires and disappointments, petty weaknesses, and most of all, the envy that's endemic to the lot of them. While there's a cartoonishness to the situations (a missing remote control or a wrongly assigned cheese sandwich can incite deep rifts) Dewar (It Could Happen to You) draws complexity from them.