Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Zoe, her daughter, and her deeply depressed husband try to escape his domineering family by swapping an inherited Manhattan apartment for an ancient Brooklyn brownstone in Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. But her husband is not the only one with psychological scars: Zoe herself is the daughter of holocaust survivors who never gave her love or property; Keevan, their new neighbor, lost his parents at an early age. When Zoe and Keevan come together, the resulting uproar in their lives, and its ultimate healing effect, is an almost foregone conclusion. Jennie Fields has been billed as an heir to Anne Tyler, but Tyler would never have given in to the urge to explain away her characters' fallibilities by equipping them with such hot-button head problems — which, in the end, only clutter the already affecting love story. B+