Imag­ine King Lear as a com­e­dy. Or just read Susan Isaacs’s lat­est as a live­ly and wit­ty nov­el on the seri­ous sub­ject of Teshu­va—rec­on­cil­i­a­tion — of heal­ing decades-old hurts. But wait! It’s also a fam­i­ly saga about age and wealth pit­ted against youth.

The ele­gant, amus­ing, and pro­found­ly nasty tycoon, Glo­ria Gold­berg Gold­berg Gar­ri­son has a king­dom to bequeath to one of the grand­chil­dren she bare­ly knows. They’re all twen­ty-some­things who fool­ish­ly believe mon­ey isn’t every­thing. Rapid­ly approach­ing eighty, Glo­ria doesn’t wish to watch the min­utes tick by while the three dither over issues like love, mean­ing, iden­ti­ty. She has sum­moned them all from New York to her pala­tial home in San­ta Fe to ask them one ques­tion: ​“Which one of you most deserves to inher­it my busi­ness?”

Glo­ria nev­er antic­i­pates the answer will be ​“Not inter­est­ed” times three. She cre­at­ed a bril­liant, boom­ing busi­ness. And they say ​“No.”? Turns out the grand­chil­dren like their jobs and lives. And per­haps they’re still angry about some major hurts Glo­ria inflict­ed on mem­bers of the fam­i­ly. Get over it –that’s what Glo­ria thinks! This isn’t about ten­der feel­ings. It’s about mil­lions upon mil­lions, of liv­ing a life the nine­ty-nine per­cent dream of.

Always sassy, smart and wicked­ly wit­ty, Susan Isaacs is at her for­mi­da­ble best in a nov­el that is both hilar­i­ous­ly fun­ny and a deeply mov­ing tale of fam­i­ly, faith, and discovery.