Hope Springer Cook, b. 1948--with grand farce in the first half, milder and darker (and less successful) comedy later on. Growing up in posh Pimm s River, Ct., Hope is the youngest in a You Can t ... 更多 ? Take It With You household: dotty inventor-Dad is a would-be Renaissance man; mother writes mysteries under pseudonyms, with the help of actual weapons and staged readings of her work-in-progress; one brother s a hypochondriac, another s into snakes, all the siblings come up with weird spouses. And everyone, including nasty-tongued Granny Talbot, is pretty rough on Hope--who has a recurring weight problem. (""The lynch mob grouped around the bathroom scales in a tight semi-circle."") Small wonder, then, that Hope wins acclaim in English 102 at Schuyler--read Skidmore--with her essay, ""I am a Social Leper."" Still, there are a few suitors, and some bright variations on standard sex-fumble-comedy: blind dates abound (""I knew we were in trouble. . . They were wearing lederhosen and bright red socks""); there s near-consummation with crossword-puzzle fanatic Christopher. (""My manhood, root, member, noble tool must have overpowered you. Don t be frightened, alarmed, nervous, apprehensive."") The most persistent swain is un-gallant Barrett Cook--who deflowers a non-orgasmic Hope, gets her pregnant (a Philadelphia abortion-scene manages to find some fresh comic horror), but shuns her whenever she gains weight to become ""the Duchess of Lard."" And when Hope thins down permanently, nuptials ensue--despite the objections of Mrs. Cook (a WASPy sports nut) and the offensive remarks of Hope s brother Arthur. (""By the way, kid, can you feed her in the mastodonic manner she s accustomed to?"") Then, in the early 1970s, Barrett goes to Vietnam--while Hope works for a small, prestigious N.Y. publisher-in-decline. And when Barrett returns, he insists that Hope get pregnant, that she follow him from city to city as his sporting-goods career develops: there s marriage-vs.-career tension, some mid-pregnancy adultery, mother-of-twins misery, and increasing focus on Hope s terrible three-day headaches. (Her ""hell s bells""--which are finally cured, after failed therapies galore, by correction of her jaw alignment.) These marital-woe chapters are neither particularly funny nor credibly harrowing, with a surprisingly weak windup. But the early material is often hilarious--and Packard (daughter of Vance) shows a firm talent for Kaufmanesque, put-down dialogue all the way through.