>PICTURING WILL Ann Beattie's vivid novel about a 5-year-old and his divorced photographer mother develops an image of parenting that is both contemporary and wise. (Vintage)
THE BROKEN CORD Personal, moving and tragic is Michael Dorris's award-winning non-fiction book about his adopted son, Adam, a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome. (Harper Perennial)
THE QUINCUNX Take all things Dickensian, both wonderful and wretched, wrap them around a plot about a young man's efforts to recover an inheritance, obsess about the number 5, as in the title, and you have Charles Palliser's sprawling, modern Victorian novel. (Ballantine)
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