Books: A legacy of lunacy or love? You decide.

Life in the Barnacles’ Manhattan apartment is already weird enough, what with the curio-packed rooms, indoor jungle and varying eccentricities of its human inhabitants. Now their Darwin-obsessed father has decided to lay down a challenge to each of his six daughters: Whoever can create the greatest legacy for herself and the Barnacle name in one week will inherit all the family’s considerable assets.

The reaction is mixed: Some embrace the challenge, while others fear that Dad has simply gone off his rocker again. But it will prove to be an eventful week in the life of the Barnacle family, with an outcome that will surprise them all.

The deadpan-funny story of the Barnacles puts a new spin on the old tale of family dynamics, with a cast of unpredictable characters and a twining loop of a storyline that has all the haphazard feelings of real life. Friends, lovers and relatives wander in and out of the story, seeming to make it up as they go along.

The strength of the novel lies in the characters. Each one is a fully drawn, flesh-and-blood person. Each sister has her own strong personality that differs considerably from that of her sisters while still being recognizably tethered by a family connection. Their parents have strengths as well as foibles, and their suitors are as confused by their own feelings as they are by the mercurial sisters.

That the reader actually cares about how these odd relationships mesh is all the more remarkable, considering that few of the characters are all that likable. The Barnacles and their friends are real because they are selfish, moody and changeable. Both the strong and the weak in them is simply a matter of fact, but with the capacity to grow and shift. In a story so woven through with the ancient argument of nature versus nurture, the idea of humans as ever-evolving is only fitting.

Books reviewed in this column are available online or at your local bookstore.