COMMONWEALTH BY ANN PATCHETT (2016)

Tolstoy wrote, "All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This story of two unhappy families begins when a full-of-himself District Attorney arrives uninvited to a christening party at the house of a cop and his beautiful wife. The D.A., who is escaping from the neediness of his pregnant wife and three young children at home, brings a bottle of gin and most everyone gets drunk and he kisses his hostess. Thus the troubles begin for the four adults and six children, as two marriages dissolve and new family groups are formed. The novel follows their lives for five decades as they deal with resentments, grief, guilt, and betrayals, coming to terms with their place in life and with each other in sometimes unexpected ways.

The situation of broken apart families is not a particularly original one perhaps, but the way Patchett tells it is. She does not follow a linear time line or a consistent viewpoint; she jumps backward and forward and from person to person, and it works beautifully. Her characters become more than their stereotypes--the capable sister, the quiet sister, the rebellious brother, and so forth--and assume the roles of complex people. Her writing is elegant.

Patchett's 2001 novel Bel Canto is one of my all-time favorites, and I have read her novels since with a bit of disappointment because they were not as good. This one comes close.