THE HOUSE OF SHANAHAN

A pinpoint localization -- the Catholic Irish districts of Buffalo, N.Y., in the mid and late '20's -- take care of the multiplying and dividing of the sons of the shamrock. Concentrated on Rose, married to Steve, a policeman, this, with its backdrop of the songs, phrases and politics of that era, follows the possible scandal of Isabel who goes into society and out of the Church when she marries Protestant Lovett; bootlegging, which kills Steve, and the further crossing and recrossing of family threads that get more and more complicated. For Gen, separated from Dennis, now a fashionable bootlegger, loves Isabel's crippled step-son, Philip; adopted Noreen loves Dennis; and Isabel is playing hookey from her older husband with alcoholic Gene. Meanwhile the oldsters, who have worked for the past aristocracy, play their part as busybodies and drive the rebels into conformity. A close knit fabric -- lace curtain-wise -- whose nostalgia is neither novel, definitive, nor compelling.