I really like Ellen Gilchrist's writing, especially the Nora Jane stories. A Dangerous Age has characters from a different universe, though they may interconnect with Nora Jane's world at some point. The strength of Gilchrist's writing, I think, are the families and individuals she makes you care about, writing about them over and over again, from different characters' perspectives.
A Dangerous Age is narrated by several thirtysomething cousins in the Hand family. In this post-9/11 novel, the women marry soldiers, but ultimately the book has an anti-war message. The characterizations are as good as ever, but the story is a little disjointed because its didacticism isn't necessarily organic. I don't really know what all she was trying to do, though, with most of the book narrated by half American Indian newspaper editor Olivia de Haviland Hand and chapters here and there told in the first or third person by or about other cousins that didn't really contribute much to the story, just to the idea of the importance of their large, interconnected family.
It’s a fine read, but when you're done, you're like wtf? How did they get to the end from where they started?
Cousins, babies, war.
The Hand Family women--
Whose husband will die?