Friends of the Family

In a modest, chatty tone, Bittle ( Dear Family ) chronicles the interwoven lives of two very different families from the 1930s through the 1950s. History professor John Richards, his wife Grace and their children--Eleanor, Will and Jane--enjoy cozy, active lives on the campus of Massachusetts's Harrison School, punctuated by lively interruptions from widowed Alice Dwire, whose husband helped the impoverished John get an education, and her children Sissy and Harold. Alice manages to live well by imposing regularly on the Richards--as Grace says, ``Alice floats on the top . . . borne up by everybody else''--and her children also tend to patronize the family. The narrative is crammed with events, beginning with Jane contracting polio and including Harold and Will serving in WW II, various marriages, births, deaths, affairs and trips to New York and Europe. Life just goes on and on and on in Bittle's leisurely tale. The trite moral--that money can't buy happiness--is undermined by the Richards' meek acceptance of the Dwires' high-handed behavior. Welcome personality changes in some of the characters slightly redeem an otherwise humdrum work. (Feb.)