Following the death of her worthy liberal parents, Corlis McCrea moves back into her family's grand Reconstruction mansion in North Carolina, willed to all three siblings. Her timid younger brother has never left home. When her bullying black-sheep older brother moves into "his" house as well, it's war.

Each heir wants the house. Yet to buy the other out, two siblings must team against one. Just as in girlhood, Corlis is torn between allying with the decent but fearful youngest and the iconoclastic eldest, who covets his legacy to destroy it. A Perfectly Good Family is a stunning examination of inheritance, literal and psychological: what we take from our parents, what we discard, and what we are stuck with, like it or not.

Gifted narrator Susan Ericksen uses all her well-honed talent in this story of bickering siblings. After her parents die, Corlis McCrea moves back to North Carolina and her family's rambling mansion, willed to all three children. Her timid younger brother has never left home, but her older brother moves back in, sparking much conflict. Ericksen portrays all of Shriver's characters with equal skill but shines brightest when Corlis is center stage in this story of a middle child who is trying to make everything work out well. Shriver and Ericksen deliver a literary examination of generational legacy and why we are the people we turn out to be. R.O. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

 

Lionel Shriver's books include The Post-Birthday World, Game Control, and the Orange Prize-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin. She writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and The Independent. She lives in London.

A Perfectly Good Family by Lionel Shriver
Continue Browsing		View Wish List