In Family Life Russell Banks's first novel he transforms the dramas of domesticity into the story of a royal family in a mythical contemporary kingdom. Life inside this kingdom includes the king (dubbed 'the Hearty' or 'the Bluff') who squeals angrily as is his wont; the queen who while pondering the mirror in her chambers decides to write a book; three adolescent princes who are respectively a superb wrestler a fanatical sports car driver and a sullen drunk. Then there are the mysterious Green Man with a thing for princes; the Loon who lives in a tree house designed by Christopher Wren; and a whole slew of murders mayhem coups debauches world tours and love and loss and laughter.
