For those who like to think that family life is still more or less as it was on Leave It to Beaver, Far From Shore hits hard and low. For others, weary of the sensationalism of juvenile novels, Kevin Major's story is a brave look at how a tough period can harden a boy like a nut. The pressures on the Slade family are like a vise gripping a migraine. Some (as in Major's last novel, Hold Fast) come from the frustrations of life in a small Newfoundland outport—boredom, unemployment, a general yearning to be anyplace but home. But more often they are the pressures of a family that isn't sure it's a unit any longer, and the one who flounders most is 15-year-old Chris. A cocky, wisecracking kid—when Jennifer snarls, he considers tossing her "a chunk of raw meat to quiet her down"—he is...