In This is Not About Us, con­sum­mate sto­ry­teller Alle­gra Good­man returns to the milieu of her 1996 phe­nom­e­non, The Fam­i­ly Markowitz, with an absorb­ing, endear­ing, and inti­mate new work of linked fic­tion. The wink lies in the title — as the col­or­ful, multi­gen­er­a­tional cast of Rubin­steins, sprung from a matri­ar­chal line of three sis­ters — will ring famil­iar, espe­cial­ly among the East Coast, over­achiev­ing, upper mid­dle class, Ashke­nazi set.

The book opens as sev­en­ty-four-year-old Jean­nie Rubin­stein, the youngest of three sis­ters, lies dying, sur­round­ed by her extend­ed fam­i­ly. Cheer­ful stuff, right? But true to form, Good­man bal­ances mor­tal­i­ty with sar­don­ic wit, as Jean­nie imparts her bit­ing last words. ​“She advised her younger son, Dan, to look into hair replace­ment ther­a­py. She told Melanie to try anti­de­pres­sants. Maybe they would help her lose some weight.” It is here, on Jean­nie’s death bed, where ties come undone and grudges take hold. Helen, the eldest and a proud, tra­di­tion­al home­mak­er, is incensed by mid­dle sis­ter Sylvi­a’s pre­sen­ta­tion of her irre­sistible apple cake, thus, er, tak­ing the cake in the bak­ing depart­ment. Unable to let it go, Helen allows her ego and stub­born­ness to tear their sis­ter­ly bond asunder. 

This irrec­on­cil­able — if frus­trat­ing­ly pet­ty — rift lays the ground­work for the sto­ries that fol­low, in which we pick up with var­i­ous fam­i­ly mem­bers at dif­fer­ent moments in their lives. We expe­ri­ence their work woes, mitz­vahs, dance recitals, col­lege appli­ca­tions, new rela­tion­ships, and old ten­sions. Richard, Sylvia’s only son, is a recent divorcee, nav­i­gat­ing new love and new par­ent­ing para­me­ters with­in his new uncom­fort­able nor­mal. ​“They got in and closed the doors and he leaned against his SUV and missed his chil­dren. He missed the feel­ing they were real­ly his. He missed father­hood, which was now a time-share. He missed his whole life, and he thought, I was hap­py before all this. It was­n’t true. He had not been hap­py, but he had been unhap­py in a dif­fer­ent way”. Helen’s daugh­ters, Wendy and Pam, must man­age their own ingrained ten­sions and hurts, which are drawn to the fore when Wendy’s hand-knit gift to her sis­ter ends up as a chew toy for Pam’s pooch. Mean­while, Helen is left to sulk about not hav­ing grand­chil­dren. ​“Who said com­par­i­son is the thief of joy? Or was it only on a pillow?” 

Dis­gruntle­ment trick­les down the blood­lines. Jean­nie’s orphaned adult sons, Dan and Steve, play out their own neu­rot­ic strug­gles with midlife sta­sis and finan­cial insta­bil­i­ty. Only the younger gen­er­a­tion offers a refresh­ing anti­dote to the inevitable banal­i­ty of the dai­ly grind. Dan’s col­lege-age daugh­ter Phoebe, a tal­ent­ed vio­lin­ist, bucks expec­ta­tion by tak­ing to the streets with her grand­moth­er’s beloved instru­ment to see what a more uncon­ven­tion­al future might hold. 

Through this mas­ter­ful­ly woven mosa­ic (one, worth not­ing, that’s utter­ly devoid of any dis­cus­sion or divi­sion around the Mid­dle East), a relat­able por­trait of an Amer­i­can Jew­ish fam­i­ly with all its atten­dant mishe­gas takes shape.