Family Overhead

When Con and Margaret Mary Skilly, an elderly couplewho have always longed for children, begin finding abandoned children left andright, they never question their good luck but simply raise the threefoundlings with love and devotion.Too soon the three kids are left on their ownagain. It's the Depression, with morefeet than shoes, more appetites than dinners, when rumrunners wear diamonds bigas knuckles, even the cops have favorite speakeasies, and the thrills of radioand the talkies hold the nation spellbound.Only Birdy's Regina wants the kids. A diffident, self-effacing young woman, shehas always been cowed by her mother, bullied by her absurd husband, andintimidated by her own infant. But sheturns out to have the heart of a lioness, and is determined to keep thefoundlings free of the State's clutches.Along the way she finds a strong and completely unexpected ally.Joseph William Meagher brings to teeming life thisBrooklyn neighborhood and the people in it who struggle for food and rent, loveand fun, and everything that keeps life going.If characters caring deeply for one another are unfashionable, then thisis an unfashionable novel.But such an enjoyable one!