Steven’s wry coming-of-age memoir finds humor in the havoc of family life and the unpredictable turns of adulthood.

The author’s parents’ marriage was defined by disorder, devolving into domestic violence (including a game of “poltergeist” in which household goods became ammunition) and the kind of emotional turbulence that would flatten most families but fuels Steven’s sense of the absurd. The tone remains consistent as the author recounts his family fracturing in divorce and his father marrying the au-pair, adding a new baby to the mix. A series of relocations found the family leaving England for Malta when Steven’s father—a writer—sold his 26-part serial and attempted to avoid a “super tax.” Then, it was on to Italy after the clan grew bored with the island. Things got financially dire; the family couldn’t cover rent but always managed to scrape enough together for a pint at the pub, affirming that humor and habit trump all else. Though circumstances at times became dicey, luck or fate often intervened to save them (“Rocco puttered up the hill in his Fiat 500 and delivered a cream-coloured envelope. On the back, the countesses’ family crest. We all gathered round the kitchen table and watched as Dad slit it open and extracted the contents. The cheque floated gently to the table like a feather”). Steven’s prose is spare, unadorned, and witty, with a rhythm that recalls the work of Alan Bennett or early David Sedaris—this is an understated comedy of manners filtered through chaos. The author’s ability to recount outré life experiences with deadpan precision lends the narrative its peculiar charm; the reader laughs, then winces, then laughs again. The episodic structure keeps the pace brisk, with each story offering a self-contained glimpse of folly, tenderness, or misadventure. Though the narrative offers no grand moral reckoning, it succeeds as an affectionate, self-aware chronicle of a kaleidoscope of adventures. What might have come off as bleak is here rendered illuminating by Steven’s gift for turning calamity into comedy, offering a portrait of a boy (and later a man) persevering with candor and humor.

Darkly funny vignettes turn a life of familial chaos into a bracing study of resilience.