The Understanding: A Novel - First edition

You're invited to a party at the Whitechapels' place. You know them, of course. Isobel won't stop having babies. Solly, a cabinetmaker of international repute, won't stop sleeping around. Because they're also attractive, talented, charmingly eccentric and known for their selfless good works, the world thinks well of them. While Isobel keeps track of their nine children, Solly makes exquisite furniture and operates a job-training program for street kids. The Whitechapels enjoy a mellow, benevolent kind of fame. Then their daughter, Magnolia, becomes pop music's latest angry darling and a harsh light is cast on lives which for years have been played out in flattering amber. In the autopsy by media that follows, it's revealed that Isobel kidnapped Magnolia as an infant. Something ugly happened at a Gulf Island commune during the Seventies; now Isobel is about to pay a price. Fame and notoriety co-exist. One does not attend parties at the Whitechapels', anymore.