Jumping ahead, we find Franny in her late 20s, having an affair with a Saul Bellow– type novelist 32 years her senior. On another hot afternoon, one of the children dies from a bee sting-a tragedy compounded by long-kept secrets and lies. With its help, the instant infatuation he conceives for his stunning hostess becomes “the start of his life.” After Bert and Beverly marry and move to Virginia, the six newly minted stepsiblings are dragged unhappily into new relationships and settings. A lawyer named Bert Cousins shows up uninvited, carrying a bottle of gin. The story begins on a very hot day in Southern California at a christening party for Beverly and Fix Keating’s second daughter, Franny. In her seventh work of fiction, Patchett ( This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, 2013, etc.) turns from the exotic locales and premises of Bel Canto (2001) and State of Wonder (2011) to a subject closer to home: the evolution of an American family over five decades. Two families are fused, atomized, and reconfigured by a stolen kiss, a child’s death, and a bestselling novel.
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