FINE, I'M A TERRIBLE PERSON

Shared cultural and familial trauma—and lousy men—loom large in this wry mother-daughter novel by Rosenberg.

San Franciscan Leyla Rothstein and her mother, Aurora Feldenburg, couldn’t be less alike. Leyla has a seemingly insatiable desire for efficiency, order, and perfection in her appearance, her family, and her marriage, and her perpetually cash-strapped mother is content to live amid the clutter of the past, gliding through the world clad in rhinestone-adorned velour sweatsuits and sparkly sneakers. Their interactions are often strained, as they often involve money—namely, the funds that Leyla sends her mom every month to bolster her meager Social Security checks. Leyla’s conversations with her mother are frequently laced with proverbs in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language of the family’s Rhodian roots. Two things bring the semi-estranged mother and daughter to Los Angeles: Leyla’s suspicions that her husband is cheating on her during a cannabis industry conference (his alleged mistress owns a company that makes THC-infused toothpaste for dogs), and Aurora’s desire to see if her late father’s recently deceased wife put her in her will. Predictably, the weekend dredges up long-suppressed family issues. Rosenberg’s novel has an effortless, dry sense of humor and quippy tone that lend themselves well to its chaotic storylines; along the way, it offers thoughtful details about Rhodian culture, language, and mysticism. The characters, as outlandish as they are, feel believably real, from their speech patterns to their idiosyncratic habits; Aurora, for example, delights in the “burnt smell of the English muffin in her old GE toaster oven,” while Leyla privately frets over which waste bin she should use to dispose of a biodegradable wine glass. Such detail extends beyond the interior lives of the characters, making for a breezy, funny, and propulsive read.

A redemptive and briskly plot-driven family story.