The Other Family - Hardcover

It's 1968 and 14-year-old Joan is trying to figure out what to do with her life while struggling against the mistakes and irresponsible behavior of her parents. Though she and her brother Hugh live in western Massachusetts with their eccentric father, every July 4 they visit their mother, who has run away to be a hippie in New York. Although Joan's mother has the clothes, the talk, and the hippie attitude down pat, her life revolves around the family of her older sister, Iris, who seem to be modern-day versions of Edith Wharton's New Yorkers. Joan becomes fascinated by the wealth and the happiness of this "other family" in comparison to her own, but soon learns that appearances aren't always what they seem.

her sharp eye, humor and smooth, understated style to this accomplished first novel about a girl's careful look at the family she believes is so much happier than her own, fulfilling the promise of her enthusiastically received debut work, Good Gossip.