GLASSWORKS, by Olivia Wolfgang-SmithI smashed a bottle while reading Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s debut novel, “Glassworks.” I had the book in one hand and a container of hair oil in the other, and the bottle slipped, ricocheted off the sink and shattered. “Glassworks” is a panoramic family saga told in four novellas, each peering over the shoulder of the preceding generation. We follow Agnes in 1910; her son, Edward, in 1938; his daughter, Novak, in 1986; and Flip, the daughter of a woman Novak loves, in 2015. The book opens with Agnes Carter, a wealthy donor to a Boston university, who hires Ignace Novak, a naturalist and glassblower, to create scientific models. When Ignace is stung by a honeybee, the pair retrieve its squashed carcass and Agnes starts to draw it.

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