Review of This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman

The many points of view within Allegra Goodman's novel made it feel somewhat disjointed, but the peeks into each character's internal struggles, motivations, and emotions coalesced into final gathering scenes that felt poignant and hopeful for individual characters and for the family as a whole. This Is Not About Us is poignant and wryly funny.

Allegra Goodman's This Is Not About Us is a story of an extended Jewish-American family. The three matriarchs are split by a death and then a feud (the impetus of the bitter rift is the making of a family-favorite apple cake after an agreement not to do so) that promptly blows up between the two remaining, elderly sisters and ultimately threatens to stretch on until their own deaths.

The story is told through multiple points of view as the various Rubinstein family members navigate the dramas large and small that make up their individual and collective lives. The story's small moments are heartbreaking; the dialogue is often wryly funny; and the words that are unspoken are at times the most powerful communication between characters who flounder as they try to get out of their own way in order to love each other.

Goodman thrusts the reader into the fraught dealings among husbands and wives, wives and wives, young siblings, grown siblings, partners, nieces and nephews, parents and children, and exes, including passive-aggressive snips, long-held resentments, well-meaning interference, stubborn anger, heartfelt confessions, and hints of growth and redemption. Unspoken messages are intuited; simple phrases belie perceived slights or underlying criticisms; and characters often assume to know each other's unvoiced motivations and intentions. (Often, the characters' imagined understanding of each other is accurate.)

Characters repeatedly struggle to overcome their worst impulses; some connect deeply with animals, music, dance, or writing in ways that change them (and sometimes in ways that connect to ancestors' passions); and some fight for independence and privacy. Jewish tradition is interwoven through many of the family gatherings, sometimes reimagined into new iterations of long-held ways of connecting with the past and each other. The reader can see patterns of behavior snaking through generations, while other long-held conventions are snapped off abruptly, allowing for new paths and fresh beginnings.

"Take it anyway." Surely Helen had hit rock bottom, not just giving, but forcing aid on those in need. "Please," she said. "Do me a favor. Take this from me."

The various points of view allow for a fuller picture of each character yet create a somewhat disjointed-feeling book as the novel jumps from person to person. The final section of the novel captures many of the characters in extended scenes together. This part of the book felt the most powerful to me, as I was able to witness interactions and dynamics among the larger group (after being privy to each person's inner workings) as the situation played out and to see the heart behind their foibles, struggles, and attempts to support and love each other.

Goodman captures the nuances of messy situations and layered interpersonal dynamics among a complex set of characters. I sympathized with the busybody grandmothers who can only sometimes hold their tongues, their blunt delivery of advice as they age and their time on earth runs short, and their superhuman attempts to open their rigid minds to modern and for them, unorthodox, scenarios. Goodman also presents sympathetic younger characters withholding information to avoid unsolicited feedback or, heartbreakingly, to preempt loved ones' too-intense emotional investment and potential disappointment. Goodman offers unvarnished peeks into the internal challenges and thoughts of each of the divorced characters in the novel's most sticky relationship, doling out equal responsibility for the marriage's end and equal credit for the newly imagined shape of their family.

I received a prepublication edition of This Is Not About Us courtesy of NetGalley and Random House (The Dial Press).

More Love for Allegra Goodman

Allegra Goodman is a longtime favorite author for me. I first read her work 25 years ago, when I enjoyed her novel Kaaterskill Falls. Since then she has published many more novels, including Sam. Her novel Isola was one of my favorite reads of 2025.