"A Family Gathering" is a tight, unpretentious novel about the little crumbling disorders and disentanglements of nieces, nephews, uncles and aunts….

T. Alan Broughton's novel has the grace of a story told without embellishments or shock effects. Broughton doesn't crow at us with the terrors he describes. "A Family Gathering" is a tough, slender, heartbreaking book.

Jerome Charyn, "Betrayed by Adults," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1977 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), May 15, 1977, p. 13.