Families are difficult. There is no escaping your flesh and blood, no certainty you'll ever really know them, and no guarantee you'll ever be any better than the people you came from. These are the realizations and the dilemma of John "Jam" Knowles, Peter J. Smith's hero in A Good Family, as he struggles with his compromised perceptions of himself, his parents and siblings, and his own ex-wife and children. Jam is a product of New England privilege, and throughout his life he's taken for granted things that never were, and anticipated things which never fully materialized. Now he returns to his childhood summer home and begins to deal with the fact that his memories may be as artificial and optimistic as his ambitions have proved to be. There's certainly nothing new in the framework of Smith's book, as family and memory have been fair game since Proust's time. Still, the way Smith handles Jam's increasing awareness of the imperfections in the bedrock of his world is so deftly handled, so forgiving by nature, that it stands out as a quiet classic. Anybody with any feelings for—or even mere curiosity about—their home or family will enjoy this strangely touching novel.