Newspaper Article

If each family is an island, this one really stands alone

Reviewed by Meg Wolitzer, An author whose most recent novel is "This Is Your Life"

1990

Overview

In Cathleen Schine's critically praised first novel, \"Alice in Bed,\" the eponymous heroine spends the entire book in the hospital. Now, in Schine's second novel, \"To the Birdhouse,\" Alice is up and about, and it's a good thing, too; her family needs her. Who else but Alice can protect her mother from the hopelessly annoying, lovesick, vengeful Louie Scifo? And who else but Cathleen Schine can graft a delicate comedy of manners onto a slapstick farce with such unerring poise and wit? The novel opens with a familiar, all-purpose convention, the wedding scene. And right away we're given a chance to meet the important characters: the bride Alice, a photographer of birds; her new husband Peter, a sweet, distracted baseball statistician who \"resembled a great, gawky adolescent-all hands and feet and untied shoelaces\"; Alice's mother, unorthodox child psychologist Brenda Brody; and, finally, Brenda's boyfriend, Louie Scifo, who hops from table to table at the reception, sticking cards that read \"Scifo Art Gallery Including TOP Jewels and Gems\" into all the centerpieces.

• Publisher: Tribune Publishing Company, LLC