MOTHER IN THE DARK

A daughter tells the grim story of the effects of her mother’s mental illness.

Most of this debut novel takes place during the childhood of its narrator, Anna, with occasional chapters set when she is in her 20s; her mother, Diana, is at the center of the book. When Anna and her two younger sisters, Lia and Sofia, are small, their family lives in the working-class neighborhood near Boston that Diana grew up in and where she has the support of family and friends. But when her husband moves them to a raw new suburb where she knows no one, she spirals into mental illness. The author writes insightfully about a child’s perceptions of growing up amid neglect and conflict, and she depicts those conditions vividly. But for long stretches those details take over the story and become repetitious: She puts in every long-unwashed nightgown, every sink full of slimy water and crusty dishes, every meal scrounged by the kids from empty cupboards, every embarrassing public incident, every insult from Diana's lips—but never an attempt on anyone’s part to seek help. The girls’ father undergoes his own deterioration, drinking heavily. As children, the sisters cling together, but as they become teens they sometimes turn on each other. The one positive constant in young Anna’s life is her best friend, Vera. They move to New York and live together while going to college, but even though Anna cuts off contact with her family, the past pushes its way in. For all of the family’s members, it seems the truly crushing force is not mental illness itself but the urge to keep it secret.

A bleakly effective narrative.