The Loved Ones

The latest from Hughes (Wavemaker II) begins just before Christmas 1969: the snow is coming down fast when Jean Devlin pulls out of her driveway and pauses in the quiet hush of the storm%E2%80%94in part because she can't see, but also to think and remember. The pages that follow set the tempo and sensibility for the rest of the novel, a patchwork of present and past, stitched together so seamlessly it can be unclear when one ends and another begins. This fluidity feels honestly captured and articulated, but a basic clarity is often sacrificed as a result. While Jean alludes to the pain of her past%E2%80%94a dead son, a wayward husband, and a beloved but unruly brother%E2%80%94she watches the snow and feels her solitude deepen. Hughes's novel is tender and sympathetic, but the cascade of familial references, and the snippets of memory that aren't fully explained or connected, never quite catch. As the book evolves and time moves along, through 1970 and into 1971, who, exactly, the characters are continues to feel too slippery, too subtle, too elusive. Despite the gorgeous precision of nearly every sentence (or perhaps because of it), the essential grounding of time and place feels obscured more often than not%E2%80%94like something in a snowstorm that's right there but can't quite be distinguished. Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency. (June)