"The Arrivals," by Meg Mitchell Moore

I have always loved stories that follow the classic Jane Austen pattern of gathering a few characters into a small place and then letting them interact. “The Arrivals” (Little, Brown, 2011), by Meg Mitchell Moore, does this, with an intriguing twist: Ginny and William’s three adult children all come home suddenly one summer, one by one, bringing their various family members, troubles and issues with them. Suddenly the house is full to the brim, noisy, messy, mostly loving but sometimes tense and difficult. Lillian brings her two young children, leaving her briefly unfaithful husband Tom behind, and is trying to decide if her marriage is over. Stephen and his wife Jane’s planned two-day visit turns into several weeks when pregnant Jane is put on emergency bed rest. And Rachel, who has just broken up with her boyfriend and gotten tired of her seemingly dead-end job, and is broke, drags herself home to recuperate. The events of the novel are both mildly dramatic and soothingly familiar -- very much like most people’s lives, most of the time. All the family dynamics come into play, with some mild snippiness and thoughtless behavior and words, but because everyone is basically nice, and basically loving, there isn’t too much drama or trauma to be had on this account. There are a couple of briefly scary scenes, but all is resolved quite quickly. Some readers might find the book a bit lacking in plot, but not I. To me, the interactions among the family members and the few outside characters allowed into the story are amply interesting. Although the initial setup is somewhat artificial (but clever!), the characters and their interactions seem quite realistic. Well, maybe Ginny and William are a bit too saintly, but they love their children and want to help them, even when they sometimes guiltily wonder how long they are all going to stay; after all, the pleasures of cooking and cleaning and doing laundry for, and worrying about, six extra people wear thin quickly. I won't give away the ending, but I will give a little hint: no, don't worry, they don't stay in the family nest forever.