By any sociological yardstick applied in the 1950s and early 1960s, when boomers were spawned by the millions in spanking-new nuclear families, the two-plus-two domestic unit I grew up in was a model of normality. No divorce, alcoholism or abuse lurked in our closet. My parents were two hard-working people en route to the middle class, doing their best to raise their kids for better futures than they’d been able to command for themselves. Like most families of the pre-therapy era, ours came unburdened by any emotional or psychological vocabulary. I knew no one whose folks sat up nights mulling whether their offspring’s self-esteem was up to snuff, or whether the family was “communicating” adequately. They were all too busy putting food on the table and getting on our cases to mind our manners, and I for one cared about that less than getting the silent treatment. In my family, displays of strong feeling were discouraged and, when they burst through anyway, were put down to moodiness, and those expressing themsent to their room. Silence was my enemy, which may be why I never saw a quiet space I didn’t want to fill and why the inner workings of families came to seem to me at once seductive (because they were out of my reach) and full of mystery (because I didn’t understand... More >>>