Next of Kin

This affecting novel begins with a violent car crash in which Esther Persky is thrown from a VW and killed. The narrator, Esther's sister, proceeds to weave events of family history, particularly those that relate to her dead sibling, with present-day scenes in which relatives converge to mourn their loss. Sarah details the sisters' childhood in Toronto as part of a devoutly religious Jewish family. Although the girls go their different ways spiritually, theirs is a symbiotic bond in which the younger Sarah plays the role of protector, shielding her sister from the cruel realities of growing up. All this changes when Esther meets the unstable Hank, the man of her dreams, at the Jewish Canteen at the end of WW II. The sisters become estranged as Sarah moves to New York, develops a career, gets married and has a child, while Esther remains miserable, childless and hopelessly suburban. The situations Zeitlin ( Mira's Passage ) relates are fairly ordinary, yet the author brings us so completely into her characters' lives that we cannot help but care about every occurrence. Zeitlin is a fluid writer, moving back and forth from past to present with seamless ease. (Sept.)