LAKE EFFECT

After fracturing in the divorce-happy 1970s, neighboring families reconfigure in surprising ways over the years ahead.

As Sweeney’s satisfying third novel opens in 1977, a Rochester divorcée is buying seven copies of The Joy of Sex for her women’s group; one copy in particular will make its way through the two decades over which the story of the Finnegans and the Larkins unfolds, becoming a formative reading experience for Larkin daughters Clara and Bridie. Sweeney captures the zeitgeist of the ’70s with key passages in cultural history: along with the divorce spike of those years, the plot weaves in the research at Xerox that ultimately led to the personal computer, the early days of cable food shows, the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic, the way people could disappear in a time before email and smartphones and social media, and more. The geographical aspect of the setting—Rochester—is also put to good use; the “lake effect” that makes the weather of western New York so unpredictable is taken by one of the central characters, Finn Finnegan, to mean “you could never be sure what was coming.” Finn’s affair with his neighbor, Nina Larkin, will lead them both to end their marriages with a quick trip to the Dominican Republic; it’s probably for the best that they haven’t stopped to imagine the fallout for their four children from this rupture and the local scandal surrounding it. An unrelated but coincident disaster at the chain of family-owned grocery stores Finn helms wreaks further havoc. The plot is filled with food, cooking, and food-related enterprises from grocery-store management to food styling, all well-researched and evocatively described. As in her previous work, Sweeney’s insight into all the ways people who love each other end up at bitter odds gives the big-hearted novel a welcome bite.

An inviting family drama with the warmth, interest, and edge readers love in Sweeney’s work.