An unflinching, tender and darkly funny series of interwoven stories about three generations of women in one family as they navigate girlhood, motherhood and selfhood, perfect for fans of Jennifer Egan, Meg Mason and Paige Clark.
Mary Anne is painfully aware that she's not a good wife and not a good mother, and is slowly realising that she no longer wants to play either of those roles. One morning she walks out of the family home in Wollongong, leaving her husband and teenage daughters behind. Wounded by her mother's abandonment, adolescent Vivian searches for meaning everywhere: true crime, boys' bedrooms, Dolly magazine, a six-pack of beer. But when Vivian grows up and finds herself unhappily married and miserable in motherhood, she too sees no choice but to start over. Her daughter Evie is left reeling by this, and wonders what she could have done to make her mother stay.
Emma Darragh's unflinching, tender and darkly funny debut, the first fiction title to be published under JOAN, is like finding a shoebox full of family photos: few of them are labelled and they aren't in chronological order. Looking at photos-or stories-this way reveals things we don't see when these moments are neatly organised. See how your aunty resembles your little sister, or notice the look of longing captured on your mother's face in the 1970s that you remember feeling in 1999. Except in this book there are a few moments you wouldn't want to hold up to the light.
Thanks for Having Me unfolds over three generations: through the curious explorations of childhood, the tense anticipation of adolescence, and the fraughtness of parenthood. It explores what we give to our families and what we take away from them-whether we mean to or not-and is perfect for fans of Jennifer Egan, Meg Mason and Paige Clark.
