![dek](https://content.time.com/time/daily/2009/0911/dt_family_album_1123.jpg)
British author Penelope Lively is as drawn to unhappy families as Tolstoy was. In her slim, sharp new novel, the far-flung adult children of a big English brood reckon with a youth perfect only in pictures and discover that scar tissue can be the strongest family bond.