Ocean Avenue

Minna's Jewish immigrant family history eludes understanding, but she feels it controls her destiny. She realizes answers will be found not in the facts but in the apocryphal, often contradictory anecdotes that make up the family folklore, which Wilkinson delivers with a wry wit that recalls Woody Allen. Minna frantically rummages through recollections and second-hand anecdotes, beginning with the only information known about her nearsighted great-grandfather: ``He hung his hat on a fly'' (mistaken for a nail). But Minna's family traumatizes her. Her parents, followers of Wilhelm Reich, send her to a neo-Reichian who tickles her and sticks a finger down her throat because ``vomiting and laughter released muscular tension in imitation of the orgasm.'' This violation sums up Minna's feelings toward her brusque, intrusive family, and she flees to England, where she marries an even-keeled man. In her first novel, Wilkinson confidently and evocatively blends the historical and personal--the miracle of the steel wool that fell at her grandmother's feet, an aunt and uncle's attempt to grow grapefruits in Florida, the Holocaust--into a disturbing yet funny tale. (Nov.)