THE ORPHAN GAME

A slight first novel with a sluggish plot whose elliptical segments explore unsatisfactory family relationships and a teenage pregnancy, though in a nicely detailed 1960s suburban Californian setting. Three women narrate: Maggie Harris, the teenager who became pregnant; her mother, Marian Harris; and Marian’s aunt, the raffish Mrs. Rumsen. There are also brief, mawkish contributions from siblings Jamie and Alison, while Maggie’s portions of the tale often move into the future as she gives sketchy intimations of her life once she’s left California. The Harris family doesn’t have much cash. Father Jim, a developer, keeps investing in properties that are supposed to make him rich but never do. Marian, a skilled seamstress, sews for extra income, but financial disaster always seems imminent. As she sews, Marian recalls her alcoholic mother and lonely childhood. Maggie’s narration, meanwhile, records how at 16 she fell in love with Bruce, a recent high-school graduate preparing to enlist. Unfortunately, though, neither Maggie nor Bruce is developed enough to carry a story effectively detailing the ways families hurt and help each other. When Maggie learns she’s pregnant (after Bruce’s Christmas leave) and tries to tell her parents, they fight, so she runs away. Finally, a family truce ends in tragedy, and Maggie moves in with Mrs. Rumsen, who once lost everything she treasured in a fire and has her own memories of being rejected by her family. Maggie has the baby and decides, looking at the way Mrs. Rumsen has made a life for herself, that it’s possible “to gather up bits and pieces of the wrecked past and make something fine of them.” Newcomer Darby tries hard to map the hostile and difficult terrain of family life, but her characters are too weak to give her much help.