A Bowl of Cherries

Fay Weldon fans and a host of other readers will cheer lauded British writer Mackay's U.S. debut with this brisk and perfectly targeted probe of the tangled lives of an English family. Handsome and self-absorbed Rex Beaumont, renowned since the publication of his first novel many years earlier, lives in his parents' mansion near Dorking with his wife Daphne; she writes children's books, and together they turn out a popular detective series. Their depressed and overweight daughter Daisy resides nearby with her beastly, hyper-controlling husband Julian and their young daughter. Rex's twin Stanley, a mostly forgotten minor poet disgraced for his refusal to serve in WW II who barely survives on dishwasher's wages, has a room not far from the seedy building where Rex's illegitimate son Seamus, 14, lives with his mother. With deft control and deadly wit, Mackay guides these characters and an equally well-drawn supporting cast through a hilarious and touching plot that brings redemption to the deserving and just deserts to the less so. Inventive, insightful and vigorously entertaining. (Nov.)