THE BEST WE COULD HOPE FOR

Two generations of a dysfunctional family struggle to find breathing room in this dark solo debut by the co-author of The Nanny Diaries (2002).

In 1957, Jayne Linden is relieved to escape her life in suburban Maryland to study at Radcliffe, where she meets and soon marries aspiring journalist Rodger Donaghue. Left behind in Maryland with their chilly mother and abusive father is Jayne’s younger sister, Bunny, who soon runs away to travel around the world, in the process producing three children. When she realizes she can’t raise them on her own, she drops them off with Jayne, who later has two children herself. Jayne goes on to divorce Rodger, who is now “the toast of New York’s intelligentsia,” setting off an acrimonious custody battle. One of Jayne’s children, Linden, is at the center of that battle, and her struggles over the next several decades become the focus of the second half of the novel, as Linden, an artist who makes spooky dioramas, attempts to uncover the secrets at the heart of her family. Fans of The Nanny Diaries and Kraus’ other novels written with Emma McLaughlin may be surprised at the story’s unremittingly bleak tone. Though Kraus spends some time dissecting the mores of upper-class New Yorkers and distinguishing between the behavior of those on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, her main concern is the way abuse echoes down through the generations, bewildering those caught in its wake. Kraus juggles the stories of a dozen characters deftly without losing her focus on Jayne and Linden, as she touches down on key scenes through several decades. As her haunted souls muddle through their lives, the reader senses patterns the characters will never fully realize.

An anguished investigation of the way memories can warp lives.