Joy is close to fulfilling her dreams of retiring and moving to live with her sister in England. The problem is, she is squandering her life savings away paying rehab bills. Her 42-year-old daughter, addicted to methamphetamines, is constantly dropping out of the program and relapsing.
Joy is a family therapist and the latest of her clients may be the most dysfunctional family she has ever worked with. The father, having fallen out of love, is leaving to revive his career as a stand-up comedian. The mother is so deep in a sea of melancholy that she can no longer see the surface, and the sisters are quite literally trying to kill each other.
This is not a happy book. Apart from Joy, all the characters are unlikeable, flawed and, in some cases, almost psychotic. But it is these flaws, the sadness, the madness, the violence, that make this book hard to put down. The reader knows that some form of disaster awaits them, like a train wreck on the horizon. But just like the train, you are stuck on the rails and all you can do is keep turning the pages, coming closer and closer to a catastrophic climax. But this is the strength of the novel. You simply must find out what is going to happen to these characters.
Fitzgerald addresses topics of domestic violence and the tragic effects that drugs have on society, families, and individuals. This is a dark psychological thriller which will have you burning through the pages.
Reviewed by Neale Lucas
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