The moral of this funny and acerbic family novel is, Don't give your clever eight-year-old anything to write about. Do not twit, tease, appall, amuse, behave weirdly in the presence of, or otherwise give fertile novelistic material to, the sort of shrewd moppet who may someday find a publisher.
As will be clear to anyone, including this reviewer, who knew the author's family when she was a child, models for the fictional characters in Martha McPhee's novel, Bright Angel Time (Random House; 244 pages; $23), were found close to home. Her father, the writer John McPhee, who has written several books...