Alive and Kicking

Levin's third comic novel is a thoroughly enjoyable spoof of a quarrelsome, rabidly litigious family trying to mend its ways. Patriarch Harry Gaines, 92 years old, leaves a will intended to reconcile his warring kin: his heirs have 31 days in which to make peace, or his $60-million fortune will be applied to the federal government's budget deficit. Here the fun begins, as squabbles escalate, secrets surface and two competing firms of lawyers from the Shapolsky family (another dueling clan whose history has been intertwined with that of the Gaineses) contrive to keep the lawsuits going. As the newly appointed manager of the Gaines trust, perky young Amelia Vanderbilt (who has family secrets of her own) becomes obsessed with delving into the Gaineses' decades-long enmity and effecting a reconciliation. Columbia Law School graduate Levin employs legal documents from the many Gaines lawsuits to reconstruct the family feud, and despite his liberal use of legalese, these sections are among the book's liveliest. A shrewd but kindhearted satirist, Levin knows when to attack and when to retreat from truly bitter family disputes. Reassured by this fundamental gentleness, the reader can sit back and enjoy wacky characters, a fast-moving plot and a rare legal confrontation in which the lawyers don't come out on top. (Mar.)