We are family....

Literature seems filled with bad parents. So many first novels, the ones we read and forget about quickly, are stories of the trials and tribulations of a person trying to overcome his or her difficult childhood. Spare me.

If you want to read a story about a family, and problems, and how love can soothe almost anything, try "The Risk Pool" by Richard Russo. Russo is now a Pulitzer prize winning author, but this was only his second published work. I still love it more than anything he has written. It has heart, humor, and a coating of love like the perfect frosting on a cake. It is the story of Ned, whose parents were never meant to be together. Neither of Ned's parents is even close to being perfect, but he loves both his mom and dad with all his heart. I have read this book over and over, and I always find a new line to tug at my heart. However, part of the reason I love it so is because it is set in Gloversville, the home town of Richard Russo.

Gloversville is old-fashioned. In Gloversville, extended families still have Sunday dinner together. A Mary Kay party is a huge event, with lots and lots of women, lus their daughters, grandchildren, laughter, and so much food you could skip the next three meals. When you have good friends from Gloversville, as I do, you will get a card for each holiday. If you say "no presents" to a friend from Gloversville, you can count on her bringing you a plate of homemade cookies or candy, telling you food doesn't "count" as a present. A Gloversville person will open her home to you, no questions asked. She will cook you a turkey dinner just because you said you felt like having one. In Gloversville, at the holidays, homes are decorated with themes, and presents are wrapped to match the decor. Coffee is not sipped without a piece of cake on the side. Neighbors say hello just because they live near each other.

When Gloversville people go to the malls in Albany, about an hour away, they call it going "down the line", like their grandparents did. There is plenty of poverty, alcoholism, crime, and sadness, just like everywhere else in America. But, in Gloversville,when a new store opens, people support it. When the high school has a football game, people of all ages go to cheer. When people grow old, their families care for them. I was lucky to have known two great women from Gloversville ...Margaret and Martha. Between them, they raised ten amazing children. They were never famous. They didn't write or paint or get elected to the City Council. They didn't need to. They were happy and strong women. Old-fashioned women.

When you begin to read "The Risk Pool", I hope you will see the world of Gloversville as clearly as I do. I hope you will find a character exactly like someone you once knew. And I hope, for just a few hours, you will let yourself live in this old-fashioned world. It surely wasn't perfect, and Russo acknowledges that. But he gives the reader a sense of belonging to a place you just might want to linger in. At least until the next Mary Kay party.