Barbara Delinsky, Family Tree

Family Tree

Barbara Delinsky

Doubleday, Feb 2007, $25.95, 368 pp.

ISBN: 038551865X

He dotes on his wife while she adores her husband. Both Hugh and Dana Clarke are eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child but when Lizzie is born, both parents are shocked to see she has Afro-American features including skin color and hair. The Clarke family came over on the Mayflower and the patriarch is a rich, published author who lives in a wealthy neighborhood whose residents are old money. When they come to the hospital to see their grandchild, Hugh's father becomes furious, claiming his daughter-in-law had an affair with a black man or if not she has black blood in her ancestry.

Other relatives and friends comment on Lizzie's features and Hugh asks for a paternity test in the hope that it will shut people up. Dana is heartbroken that her husband made such a request and a schism in their loving marriage opens. Hugh needs to know what relatives in Dana's family are black and the only person it could be is her unknown father. Yet when they confront him, he provides positive proof that there is no African blood in his family. Dana doesn't care because she thinks how Lizzie looks is insignificant but Hugh pursues the subject and ends up shocked at what he learns.

This is one of Barbara Delinsky's finest books because she raises interesting social issues and leaves it to the reader to form their own opinions. Hugh is not a bad man but is a product of his blue blood upraising. He loves his wife and daughter very much and is shocked at himself when he sees things differently because his daughter is not totally Caucasian. Dana feels that a DNA test was irrelevant and loves her daughter just as she is and hopes Hugh can do the same. The protagonists are great characters because they are not saints but people who are products of their environments. FAMILY TREE is a heartwarming family drama.

Harriet Klausner