MAYBE BABY

Not all dysfunctional families are alike, as first-novelist Darlington (stories: Madame Deluxe, 2000) shows in a swift-moving and accomplished take on the parent-child wars.

Gretchen Glide, with hirsute boyfriend Ray, a performance artist, sneaks into her childhood basement bedroom in Fort Cloud, Wisconsin. Upstairs, father Rusty, home from his auto salesman job, hangs his trousers and jacket at the door, heads for the kitchen for a six-pack of beer, then settles in to watch David Attenborough on PBS. Mother Judy arrives next from her job teaching gym instead of home economics at the high school, pads to the kitchen in her nylon stockings to slide out a pair of mauve heels from under the sink, and reaches for the butterscotch schnapps behind the crock-pot. Downstairs, Gretchen and Ray struggle out of their ski gear and make love, conceiving a child. Gretchen, her brother Carson, who left home to join a cult in his teens, and their older brother Henry, who ran off to start a rock band, have all rebelled violently against their parents. Now, Gretchen’s pregnancy, and her involvement with a group of Chicagoans interested in “gender-neutral” parenting, set family reunion and confrontation into motion. Mom, Dad, and Gretchen all get a say in this remarkably balanced story. Rusty’s take on Ray (“the Chimp”) can be hilariously on target, as can Judy’s yearning to be an involved grandmother and Gretchen’s gradual awakening to a sense of her parents as human beings. Judy tries to fit in, knitting black “onesies” for the baby and spending time with Gretchen’s guru, who is raising two gender-neutral youngsters named after galaxies (M16 and M64). Their sex is to be a secret until they’re five, but there are clues: M64 has a forbidden Barbie doll. By the time Gretchen comes home from the hospital with her baby, the family has been transformed.

Darlington’s wry wit and all-encompassing compassion help us love her characters, even those least like us.