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Boston Globe

Michelle Huneven's ‘Bug Hollow' is an accidental novel, and an ode to ‘unchosen family'

At the urging of her friend Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The novel is an expansive family saga that unspools over decades and generations of the messy, loving, sometimes battling Samuelsons. Sibyl, the clan's complicated, critical mother, is based on the author's own mother, a dedicated teacher who 'lost interest in my sister and me,' says Huneven, while father, Phil, is soft-spoken and quietly loving. Above all, the novel is about making peace with 'the unchosen family that you're stuck with,' Huneven says. Advertisement Architecture plays a big role in the book as well, especially the California modernism of Gregory Ain. Huneven's parents met in an Ain-designed house, and that's where Phil and Sybil first encounter each other in the novel. At a recent reading, Huneven says, 'I got to the point where I talked about the Ain planned home development … and I burst into tears, because they all burned down.' Advertisement Huneven wrote the book before the massive wildfires that 'It's so amorphous at the beginning — you just kind of just throw out these ideas, and you remember what you like about your old house and you want it to be a little bit different. It's similar to a novel because it's so big, and like a novel it has so many rooms.' Michelle Huneven will read at 7 p.m. Friday, June 27, at And now for some recommendations…. In ' The comedian Jo Firestone has whipped up a delicious debut mystery in ' Advertisement After last year's best-selling 'Amazing Grace Adams,' Fran Littlewood returns with ' Kate Tuttle edits the Globe's Books section. Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and critic, can be reached at