My Goodreads and Amazon Review of This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman (Rated 5) – A Sage Family Saga. This is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman is the saga of a three-generation Jewish family, told from multiple perspectives. The tale opens when the youngest of three sisters, Jeanne, dies at the age of 74 and her two older sisters, Helen and Sylvia stop speaking to each other. Sylvia, a gifted baker, has the audacity to bring an apple cake to the shiva, using a recipe attributed to Helen, a terrible baker. The sisters’ feud has implications for their children and grandchildren, each of whom is wrestling with their own place in the world, be it marriage, parenthood, career, and/or simply growing up and growing older themselves. Each chapter is a story unto itself, but knitted together, they offer a cohesive view of family dynamics in all their complexity, messiness, and competitiveness, as well as a source of identity, solace, and love. The characters’ small personal epiphanies will make readers think grandly, “Ah, yes! That’s how it is for me, for everyone.” A universal picture emerges from particular details. Goodman writes with a keen eye, a lively sense of humor, and empathy. She has a knack for penetrating the hearts and minds of people as different as a young girl, a divorced middle-aged father, and a dissatisfied but doting grandmother. As a novelist who also writes from several points of view (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admired her skill at linking their tales while respecting the individuality of each. This absorbing book is about all of us.
Goodman writes about us, about all families
Why writers read: “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” – George R. R. Martin