Welcome Home, Stranger

In Christensen’s penetrating latest (after The Last Cruise), a journalist returns to her hometown in Maine after the death of her estranged mother, Lucie. Rachel is a “middle-aged childless recently orphaned menopausal workaholic.” Her sister, Celeste, is a mother of two, married to the scion of a wealthy family. The sisters quarrel (initially over the fact that Rachel was absent while Celeste nursed Lucie through cancer treatments and hospice care), then reconnect, then quarrel again. Lucie struggled with alcoholism and often pitted the sisters against each other. As they attempt to bring an end to their perpetual conflict, various male characters orbit them. There’s Rachel’s longtime lover David, now married and about to be a father; Neil, Celeste’s distant husband; and Jesse, an unhoused man who reminds Rachel of her dead cousin, and whom she hires to fix up Lucie’s house. The plot treads familiar ground, but Christensen skillfully portrays the issues at play in many families: there are deep bonds, but also deep resentments, “volcanic” emotions, and decades-old misunderstandings. The character Lucie, an immature, thwarted tyrant, is particularly well drawn. Readers in search of an engrossing family drama will find much to like. (Dec.)