Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate.

Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life.

Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest ( Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State. Introverted, clotted, short of narrative drive and, above all, unconvincing, this sensitive but obsessive family anatomization will test the patience of many readers. This complicated cast is matched by Selasi’s taste for fragmented, overloaded sentences: “That still farther, past ‘free,’ there lay ‘loved,’ in her laughter, lay ‘home’ in her touch, in the soft of her Afro?” More secrets, wounds and identity crises are rehashed in Africa, until the scattering of the ashes restores some unity. And anxious Sadie is bulimic and withdrawn. Artist Kehinde, hiding in Brooklyn, yearns shamefully for his sister. Taiwo is still in therapy after her high-profile student affair with the dean of law. Olu, now half of a Boston-based “golden couple,” doesn’t believe in family. The remainder of the book follows the impact of the patriarch’s death on this group, which assembles for the funeral.

One central event was the breakup of Kweku’s marriage to Fola and separation from his four children: Olu, twins Taiwo and Kehinde and youngest Sadie. The death of Kweku Sai, a noted surgeon, in the garden of his home in Accra, Ghana, on page one is followed by an impressionistic account of his life-glimpses of childhood and parenthood, moments of shame and bad decisions, regrets, ironies and final thoughts. The bonds of love, loss and misunderstanding connecting an African family are exhaustively dissected in a convoluted first novel.

Ghana must go novel