by Ellen Currie
First published 1994
In suburban kitchens and living rooms across America, ordinary people confront the strange realities of family existence. A mother discovers unexpected truths about her teenage daughter. A husband realizes his wife has been keeping secrets that reshape their entire marriage. Children witness adult behavior that confuses and disturbs them. These families appear normal from the outside, but behind closed doors they wrestle with disappointments, resentments, and small betrayals that accumulate over years. Some moments bring genuine laughter, while others reveal the casual cruelties people inflict on those closest to them. Each story exposes the gap between what families pretend to be and what they actually are. The characters struggle to connect with each other across this divide, seeking understanding in a world where love and harm often arrive together. Currie captures both the absurdity and the pain of domestic life with precision and compassion.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
224 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster