In one of the short stories/chapters of Allegra Goodman’s This is Not About Us, two sisters-in-law at a family Seder watch in horror as their husbands, brothers Dan and Steve, begin to fight over the pointed questions Steve’s asking Dan’s daughter Phoebe about the practicality of her new life as a professional busker: “Andrea and Melanie looked at each other in dismay. They maintained a certain bond, and they were wondering the same thing. Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubinstein family, it could go either way.”   

I read the book just after Passover on an airplane. I was coming back from the NY launch for Marriage to the Sea, followed by a family visit. All a huge pleasure. But I’d been running nonstop for a very long time, and reading far too much news, and plane travel is what it is. So I was grateful to disappear into Goodman’s characters, their daily lives and gently intransigent problems, seen with insight and humor. Especially since Goodman also drops plumb lines into the depths of those lives, giving emotional, psychological, even historical context to apparently lighter moments.