Can You See the Wind?

In Gologorsky’s admirable if overstuffed latest (after Every Body Has a Story) the author sticks with familiar themes: family relationships and the travails of the working class amid larger events. In 1967, Celia is raising a passel of children in the Bronx as her rocker husband’s star begins to fade. Her younger sister, Josie, determines to leave her Bronx home and find purpose in stopping the Vietnam War, and their brother Richie enlists in the army to see the world. The main story lines revolve around Josie and the boyfriend she meets at a protest in Washington, D.C., who gets involved with the Black Panther movement, and Celia’s fractured relationship with her oldest son, Miles, who joins a violent underground antiwar group. Richie’s eye-opening letters home, meanwhile, paint a devastating picture of combat in Vietnam. The author’s prose sings, but her agenda to explore the political vagaries of the time undermines the character development. Readers will nevertheless appreciate this apt depiction from the front lines of a difficult time in the nation’s history. (Nov.)