"Family Dancing"

I recently read and posted (6/8/11 and 6/12/11) on two of David Leavitt’s novels; my comments were lukewarm. I have now (belatedly!) read his collection of short stories, “Family Dancing” (Knopf, 1984), perhaps his most well-known book, and now I “get” why his work has been praised by both critics and the reading public. His stories, as the title indicates, are all about families, and the many ways their members are entangled, are happy, are miserable, misunderstand each other, and drive each other crazy, yet provide a glue and a center for its members, drawing them back to each other again and again. There are certain common themes throughout many of the stories: divorce, cancer, mental illness, the connections of siblings, the gay brother, and the family home or summer cottage that keeps its hold on family members long after the children have dispersed to their adult lives. These stories are very readable and compelling.