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"  In Model Home (Scribner), muchpraised short story writer Eric Puchner goes after a subject that can easily provoke shudders, sighs, eye rolls, or, for those of us who are lucky, feelings of love and acceptance. Oh, family! This novel, Puchner&amp;#039;s first, following his successful 2005 story collection, Music Through the Floor, zooms in on the Zillers, who seem to fit squarely into the mid-&amp;#039;80s quotidian experience: Dad has just moved Mom, three kids, and dog from Wisconsin to L.A. for a risky real estate venture that he promises will help them afford their newly leased car, expensive furniture, and sprawling McMansion in a ritzy zip code (you can see where this is going), and Mom produces squeaky-clean sexeducation videos for teens. When Dad runs out of money (and out of ways to conceal their financial woes), the family dynamic quickly crumbles and everyone must adapt. Eldest son Dustin, an aspiring punk rocker, is already dealing with disagreeable bandmates and lust for his girlfriend&amp;#039;s sister. Middle daughter Lyle, 16, is having sex with their gated community&amp;#039;s 19-year-old security guard in between doling out scoops at the local ice cream parlor. And youngest son Jonas dresses monochromatically and brings up the subject of death at breakfast.  How the Zillers adjust to a dwindling bank account and rampant teenage angst is the heart of the matter, but what&amp;#039;s most impressive is Puchner&amp;#039;s ability to keep his characters so relatable, even when juggling them from an omniscient point of view. We feel equally connected to an OCD 11-year-old who refuses to wear any color besides orange and a middleaged husband who, in his efforts to save face, pretends his car was stolen, not repossessed. Puchner even gets the women right, hormonal teen and burned-out mom alike\u2014so much so that we&amp;#039;d gladly be the fourth child in the Zillers&amp;#039; dark, funny, completely human story. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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