The Family in David Plante's sixth novel is not a group of Mafiosi, as those familiar with Don Corleone's clan might think, but a French-Canadian family living in Providence R.I. in the 1950s. Nevertheless, this tale of the Francoeurs … is as frightening a saga of tyranny as any created by Mario Puzo.

The tyranny in this case results from the narrow world in which the Francoeurs live…. It is a world dominated by the Catholic Church in its most oppressive, superstitious and guilt-ridden incarnation. This patriarchal society dictates that the word of the husband or father is law and that a woman's only options are to become either a nun or a mother, a situation which subtly oppresses both sexes. And finally there is the tyranny of the labor unions, which destroy Jim Francoeur when he opposes them.

The novel covers a period of several years, much...