At his worst Woiwode is content to tell neat stories of children at hideous play that seem like many other New Yorker tales. But at his best he is marvelous, a real bringer of news, a writer in love with his world, who cares about the hurt it has given him as his inheritance, and honors and forgives it. Beyond the Bedroom Wall is a very long novel in which Woiwode has tried something unlikely and achieved something impressive.

He calls his book "A Family Album."… Woiwode's love for the Neumillers and for North Dakota—which is unashamedly a love for his own family and childhood home—is a matter of memory and reconstruction. He discovered at some point that he began to achieve his own life when his parents and grandparents achieved theirs, and an "album," a loosely connected series of pictures and episodes, is his way...