RaveThe Buffalo News[Frank] doesn’t just place his dysfunctional extended family on the couch. He performs such an incisively intimate autopsy on his clan’s psyche that the result comes close to being an exorcism, a perfectly balanced near-gothic blend of the fascinating and the horrifying.
Cathleen Schine
RaveThe Buffalo NewsThey May Not Mean To, But They Do is a sharply humorous yet compassionately drawn portrait of a multigenerational clan of innately droll native Manhattanites drawn together to weather the loss of their withered patriarch ... Cathleen Schine has produced a distinctive novel that speaks to our aging populace along with those well-meaning family members who must contend with them. Not since Hannah and Her Sisters have I enjoyed being among such an angst-riddled circle of related urban dwellers ... Schine’s comic sensibility might not be for every taste considering that it leans toward the mordant, especially when dealing with mortality and health woes. But there is a sense of deep shared affection among the characters that provides a nice counterbalance to any conflicts.
