Lit Hit List: Dysfunctional Families in Literature
Even the happiest of families are their own complicated webs of dysfunction, and seeing our experiences mirrored in literature is its own kind of healing. After all, wasn’t it Tolstoy who observed “all happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”? In honor of the week so many of you are spending with your families, Elizabeth and Moira bring you some of our favorite family stories.
Moira
I love a good memoir of a fucked up family, and in no specific order, here are some of my favorites:
Running With Scissors: this controversial memoir by Augusten Burroughs tells his almost too horrifying to be real story of being taken in to a veritable house of horrors by his mother’s psychiatrist. Told with the most acerbic, black humor around, you will never forget how this book made you feel.
Educated: Not to be unoriginal, but this tale of growing up in a fundamentalist LDS family with an unstable parent and finding a way out of the cult and into some of the world’s best educational institutions is mesmerizing.
The Glass Castle: In this perpetual bestseller, Jeannette Walls tells of growing up intermittently homeless, to parents who struggled to maintain any sense of stability and normalcy. Carving out a career for herself with the help of her ever-supportive siblings, her parents choose to remain untethered.
Where novels are concerned…
Can anything compare to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? Whose heart doesn’t break over and over for stalwart, staid, stable Katie and romantic, hapless, alcoholic Johnny? For Katie’s preferring Neeley to Francie, and for the number of times the Nolans must pull themselves back together in brutal circumstances…
Perennial teen favorite Jacob Have I Loved is one of the truest stories of sibling rivalry, heartbreak, and sacrifice for family. Sara Louise’s resentment of beautiful and delicate Caroline rings as authentic to anyone with a sister.
Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion explores the sense of being an outsider in one’s own family, something we’ve all felt at one time or another. While the familial relationship is not at the center of the story, it’s one of the best parts of this all-around magnificent novel.
Elizabeth
I tend to skew more towards the sublime and the ridiculous when reading of dysfunctional families, as it makes me feel better about my personal holiday situation (we have long joked that we put the fun in dysfunction):
“The Mother in Law” by Sally Hepworth is a whodunit about an overbearing and cold mother who is found dead under suspicious circumstances, and the book unravels who in the family actually committed the murder (I’m not spoiling more than that). Who hasn’t felt the need to throttle a family member after years of snide comments and passive agressiveness? Totally relatable.
“Nothing to See Here” by Kevin Wilson (my review here) is at it’s center, a story about not fitting in within your family — for weird reasons, at that. Who hasn’t felt like an outsider in their own homes, especially over something you may not be able to control?
Andrea Dunlop’s work “We Came Here to Forget” makes me definitely feel better about my sibling relationships. We may not always get along, but by god, none of them have gotten notoriety for their psychological illness. Fair warning: it’s a tough read, and it will also make you want to book a getaway to Buenos Aires.
Moira and I both really enjoyed “Ask Again Yes,” which is a family saga about two pretty ordinary families, tbh. It’s not the fastest read (it will definitely make you slow down and think), but it’s a wonderful one. Momo’s review | Elizabeth’s review
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