326 pp. "Returning to the Furey-Cooper family Martha McPhee introduced in Bright Angel Time, Gorgeous Lies opens two decades later. Charismatic therapist Anton Furey is dying, and the tribe he heads--his five children, his wife's three girls, and their uniting child, Alice--has returned to Chardin, the farm where they grew up and Anton played out his visions of communal living. Chronicled by film crews and reporters, they had been famous for being the new American blended family. But as Anton grows weaker, the hurts, allegiances, and betrayals of those years boil to the surface, and the children find themselves reliving the knotty intimacy they share as they struggle to make their peace with Anton and Anton struggles to make peace with himself. McPhee has already established herself as an acclaimed new talent; now she fulfills her promise. With shimmering prose and an acutely observant eye, she has created a portrait of an era and a family that explores the limits, and obligations, of love."
