A JOYFUL NOISE

A stylish and witty recounting of childhood summers in the '20's, by one of five children in a loving family -- which seemed to possess the wicked knack of enjoying, and exploiting, one another's landmark idiosyncracies. There was grandmother Baba, erect and small, bellowing messages from porch to boathouse via a megaphone; Mother and siblings, at work on Father's clerical vocation (""Guess what God's done now!""); and Father, gentle and high-spirited, bird-walk guide, organizer of expeditions, and an enthusiast like the others, of bracing seascapes. There is a delicate, compassionate portrait of Uncle Tink, a mental retardate in his twenties (but only ""two or three inside""), which encompasses a natural, affectionate and genial hilarity at some of his pecadillos. Warm but not the least cloying.