The Birthdays by Heidi Pitlor

The Birthdays, a novel by Heidi Pitlor (Norton): This debut traces a family reunion precipitated by Joe Miller's seventy-fifth birthday and complicated by his wife Vera's contemplation of an affair and the three different pregnancies involving their three different children. The kaleidoscopic effect of the roving third-person intimate point of view creates a crystalline portrait of each pivotal personality, while at the same time illuminating how each is seen by the others. The result is undeniably gratifying. "What do you really want?" Ellen must ask herself as she wonders "what her one dream in life had been." Pitlor isn't afraid to contemplate and explore such great and grave questions, while at the same time evoking memorable moments and a subtly riveting plot. This isn't just a terrific family novel; it's a terrific novel through and through. "You're surviving the family reunion so far?" Joe at one point asks his distinctly wayward daughter Hilary. Of course they all do, but through Pitlor's gifts they do more than that: they endure. —Fred Leebron