All three main characters, a mother and two daughters, are nonconformists — most obviously, daughter Cate, who has some qualities of an "aging" Beatnik/hippie/feminist, unable to remain comfortably at one job or in one environment, let alone one relationship, although at the end she shows some (faint) signs of mellowing and stability. Cate is argumentative, narrow-minded, often infuriatingly alive, tempting the reader to argue with her harsh judgments or stubborn, self-destructive choices. Her sister, Lydia, is a less vivid but perhaps more realistic character. Leaving her eighteen-year marriage, she succeeds in a new life — at college, at a career, and at sex — with a bit more ease than most "real" women would.

The mother, Nell, is by no means a typical representative of the older, more conventional, "unenlightened" generation that populates many other such novels. She has had an unusually strong, stubborn streak from...