JAM YESTERDAY

A potent, rich brew based on a familiar family recipe, an unusually unpaternal Father, a long-suffering, unworldly but vital Mother, and a foursome of hellions. Familiarity cases with the Canadian-American strains, the high-low life in Audubon Park (Washington Heights, New York City), Oswego, New York, and Point Hope (Ontario), Canada; with divorce of the parents, with the rugged individualism of the grandparents, the Canadian Wilsons finding little good in the American Eatons, who in turn weren't exactly fond of their daughter-in-law's parents; with the bi-national children, Canucks in the U.S. and Yanks in Canada. There are stories of the various types of lives they led in their two home places, of the move to Point Hope after the divorce, and the many facets of the ""batty"" British that lived there -- of church ructions, Juvenile exploits, neighborhood excitements; of their Mother's sidestepping matrimonial offers with vigorous assists from her children and her relatives. The author, as a Paris fashion editor, indicates the full decor of the '90's, in costume, cliches and combustibles; leaves no detail of infant terriblism blank, overlooks no small corner of memory. A fetching, if a bit garish, original, designed for pleasure and entertainment.