You know you are reading an Amy Bloom novel because there are always multiple generations at hand --- sharing memories, creating memories, trying to forget memories of each other and the way the world worked during each of those bygone times. But it’s in the hearts of the people she builds a story around that the real transformations take place, where the controversial and often incontrovertible truths of their lives find purchase.

In I’LL BE RIGHT HERE, Bloom takes sharp aim at the subject of immigration through generations of a “found family.” These are people born into different circumstances in different countries who nonetheless interact and comingle with each other in a familial way, without the burden of DNA. As all Bloom books are, it’s beautiful, sad, funny and tragic.

"Amy Bloom is a talented writer with the most poetic way of bringing the hard sharp corners of the world into her characters’ lives and then smoothing down those edges with an extra dose of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all."

Immigrating to the US from France after the tumult of World War II, Gazala befriends two sisters from New York, Anne and Alma. Gazala’s brother, Samir, was separated from her. But upon finding her, he turns the gang into a foursome who form a family that weathers decades of life together. Their experiences are not melodramatic but commonplace. Yet the fervor of their care for each other adds another layer of passion and loyalty to all of their lives, even when they pair off and make new bonds as they grow older and occasionally wiser. They call each other “the Greats” because, no matter how many bodies they add to their timelines, they are the original starting point of what they see as their own true lives.

Romance plays a major role in the book as the characters marry and have children, but there is one very big coupling that will upend their lives. Even though this unspoken love is strong, those in it will have to wait until the world changes in order for them to make it real. No matter how much caring the Greats experience, they still must exhibit indefatigable resilience in the face of those who threaten to tear their new lineage apart.

There’s a lot of social-sexual history to explore here as well, from changing sexualities to the concept of the successful throuple. Bloom never shies away from sensitive, intimate subjects and often uses their existence as a way to get to much deeper truths about the Greats in this book. What more could you expect from the woman who wrote the most beautiful and haunting novel about Eleanor Roosevelt’s lesbian love story?

Bloom is also quite timely, but she doesn’t point fingers at the changes being made to the very fabric of American life. Instead, her characters weather the most dizzying array of experiences --- those born to these shores, as well as those who came here with a dream, running from these types of oppressions from long ago. As the world circles back to some of its most heinous prejudices and practices, I’LL BE RIGHT HERE takes four lives and uses them to show that, under every layer of different shaded skin, people basically are the same. We all yearn for family, connection, pleasure and love while working hard to fight off the low points and hard truths that make up our reality at any given time.

This is a novel about family in the most unexpected ways, an absolute win for those among us still espousing the joys of brotherhood and peace to each other. Amy Bloom is a talented writer with the most poetic way of bringing the hard sharp corners of the world into her characters’ lives and then smoothing down those edges with an extra dose of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.