York Ferry

Vernon Pinny's unexpected departure in 1960 is his family's defining moment. It informs the lives of his five children and his wife for years afterward. His wife, Kay, feels ambivalent, since he leaves her to search for the grave of a Belgian Jewish woman he had met during WW II, before his marriage, but he never gets to Europe. Vernon's children are unknowingly destined to relive many of his mistakes. The setting and characters fully complement each other. The Pinny family lives in a small town in the Adirondacks that over two decades changes from a self-sufficient place that makes money off of its summer residents to an empty exurb overwhelmed by a larger city. This change culminates in the closing of the local grocery store, where two Pinnys are employed. The Pinny clan includes an alcoholic, a married son who has an affair with an Israeli exchange student, and the only daughter, who joins the Coast Guard in order to break out and finds herself in an equally insular atmosphere. Their adventures during the 1960s and 1970s are absorbing; Dawid conveys the gossip, misfortune and comforts of small-town life with grace in this, her first novel. (Feb.)