Roxana Robinson (Sweetwater) belongs to a small but important subspecies of humanity who can translate their imaginations into vivid and compelling prose. In raw numbers their population on our planet is small—but larger than you think. As has been said in another context, the voices of fiction may be small but they are persistent. One might argue that recognition and other kinds of acknowledgment come to writers via the spin of the wheel, roll of the dice, or other acts of chance. Which is not a good thing. At any rate, if you have missed her previous six books, this novel of familial dysfunction and personal failure is as good a place to start as any.