Why dysfunctional families are the best families
In fiction, but maybe also IRL? Plus, read Bisnonna (Part Two)
I always end up writing about messy families. Even when I try not to—even when I sit down in front of a fresh Word document and say to myself sternly, Morgan, this is not going to be another novel about meddling parents, estranged half-siblings, or surprise inheritances—the wind just seems to blow that way.
Family dysfunction is my catnip.
I think this is because the older I get, the less grown-up I seem to feel. (Shouldn’t someone else be in charge of my career/finances/safety? Why are these things up to me? I don’t know anything!) And there’s something so reassuring about watching a character grapple with the same issues.
Relationships, parenthood, grief, boundaries, divorce… all of this “being alive” stuff is really hard, and I’m convinced that no one ever masters it. No one is ever done growing up. By the same token, no family is ever perfect. But maybe that’s okay.
Here are a few of my favourite dysfunctional families in fiction. Yeah, they have problems—but they’re doing their best, and that might be enough.
Emma Straub’s All Adults Here proves that there’s no drama like sibling drama. The Stricks may be grown-ups, but none of them—not one—has their shit together. And that’s fine! (Do you have your shit together? Be honest!)
I reread Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth for some inspo back in 2022-ish when I couldn’t settle on an ending for Favourite Daughter. It’s about two families knitted together by one fated act of adultery. Like always, Patchett fills the book with so much life, then deftly rips our hearts out.
Jessica George’s Maame, about a young Black British woman who acts as caretaker to her ailing Ghanaian father, shows all the complexity of familial love and grief. (Bonus points for a quiet/reserved MC—not something we see a lot of these days!)
In a similar vein, Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong is about a woman who moves home to care for her father, who has dementia. It’s funny, then sad, then funny again, and it might be the only book that’s actually made me cry.
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson follows a woman who’s hired as a nanny for two highly unusual children. As she discovers, the kids mysteriously catch fire when they’re angry. It’s a very funny, very tender book about found family and one person’s reluctant journey into parenthood.
Alternating between World War II China and early-90s San Francisco, Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife is about the secrets, lies, and misunderstandings between an immigrant mother and her American-born daughter. A classic!
Bisnonna (Part Two)
This is the conclusion to a short story that first appeared in Cloud Lake Literary. If you missed Part One, you can catch up here.
“Help!” Callie bangs on the door. “Somebody!”
The toilet flushes. There is a groan, a huff.
When Callie turns again, Ersilia has crossed the tile bathroom floor—it takes but a stride or two—and perched herself on the edge of a cast iron tub. She brings her fists together side by side in the air, as if to clasp a stick or a pencil, and then turns them ninety degrees, as if to snap it. She repeats the same word over and over: “Rotta.”
“It’s broken?” Callie asks. The bathroom shrinks somehow, its bare plaster walls nudging inward.
Ersilia nods. “Rotta.”
“Broken?”
“Rotta.”
“Bro-ken.”
“Ro-tta.”
Callie resumes banging on the door.
“Mamma?” someone calls.
Ersilia crows back in words Callie doesn’t understand.
Another voice seeps inside: “Callie, honey?”
A knot uncinches in Callie’s chest. “Mom?”
“Callie, honey, this door isn’t supposed to close. It gets stuck.”
No shit! Callie thinks.
“They’re sending for someone. A locksmith or a handyman or a—a… I don’t know. I don’t totally understand. But someone’s coming to get you out.”
Callie thinks she hears chanting.
“And Sister Giulia is praying,” her mom adds.
Callie glances at her great-grandmother once more. This time, blood whirls in Callie’s ears, and she must grip the edge of the sink to keep from falling.
“Cosa?” Ersilia asks, palms upturned. She wriggles out of her stockings and folds them neatly on the counter. She’s now completely naked.
Nothing is the right consistency. She’s too flabby in some places, too lean in others. Milk-white flesh clumps at her navel like pizza dough. Sticky white pizza dough.
Callie knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter how old she gets, she will never, ever, ever look like that. It’s simply not possible.
Ersilia croaks at the door again.
“She want you making the bath,” someone translates from outside.
Callie’s training bra is soaked by now. “She wants me to what?”
“She want you washing her. You wash your bisnonna.”
Ersilia crooks her finger at Callie, nods at the tub.
“Can’t she wait until later?” Callie asks the door.
“She always make a bath this time.”
Callie leans back against the door, putting as much space between her and the old woman as possible, and rubs her eyes. This can’t be happening. It’s too much to expect. She can barely stand to see herself naked, let alone others.
Blubbering fills Callie’s ears.
Dropping her hands, Callie realizes she is, for once, not the one crying. No—that is Ersilia, who gazes down at herself, at her whole saggy being, and winces. She pinches and pokes at her belly fat. She jiggles a wing of arm flab. She mutters between sobs. And while Callie has no idea what the old woman’s mouth is saying, her eyes are saying, Look at me. Look at this sorry mess I’ve become. I’m old and ugly. All I want is to get clean. Why won’t you help me? I gave your grandfather life, who gave your mother life, who gave you life. You exist because of me. And you won’t even help me get clean? Why? Why?
The guilt is violent. It sweeps into Callie and hoists her upright. She inches forward and, skirting Ersilia so as not to touch her, leans inside the tub to turn the faucet. Water sloshes out.
Ersilia takes Callie by the wrists to steady herself as she totters into the tub, the strength of her grip almost, almost enough to distract Callie from the cowled skin of that hundred-year-old bottom.
After Ersilia plops into the water, Callie flips the toilet lid and sits. She and Ersilia blink at each other while the tub fills. Tears still gloss Ersilia’s face, silky ribbons that unfurl from the pits of her eyes to the crag of her chin.
Callie touches her own cheeks, the flesh where her own tears flowed but a few minutes ago.
“Abbastanza.”
Though the water barely covers Ersilia’s hips, Callie takes this as her cue to turn off the tap. Ersilia cocks her chin at a small purple brick resting on the lip of the tub.
Fumes of violet and tallow crowd the air as Callie lathers the washcloth with soap. Kneeling on the floor with her torso pressed against the side of the tub, she formulates a game plan. Best begin with the shoulders. Shoulders are safe—even Ersilia’s shoulders, bony and stippled with weird purple spots.
Callie brings the washcloth to Ersilia’s skin and moves it in circles, taking care not to rub too hard. She fears the old woman might crumble.
But the old woman does not crumble. Ersilia’s skin is tougher than it looks.
As Callie works her way down Ersilia’s arms and back, a pleasant weight falls over her own muscles, a sleepiness over her eyes. It’s not so terrible, washing this old woman. For one, Callie likes that there’s no talking. She likes that there’s no need for it.
When the soap bubbles have melted away, and the task is nearly finished, Ersilia brings her dripping palms to Callie’s cheeks. The old woman’s face spreads into a toothless smile. Callie ventures one back. Yes, she’s smiling. At her bisnonna.
Callie rinses Ersilia’s hair using a ceramic jug from the counter, shielding the old woman’s eyes with a carefully-placed palm. Water twists down her neck in thin cords, and the smile washes off with the last of the soap.
Later, after the handyman strips the door from its frame, Callie sneaks away into the corridor, fetches her school photo out from behind the vase, and hangs it back up on the wall where it belongs.
End notes
Currently reading: The Future by Catherine Leroux (translated from the French by Susan Ouriou), about a woman who scours the streets of a dystopian, alternate-history Detroit for her missing granddaughters.
On my desk this week: Somehow, I’m already 10K words into my new novel project! I’m playing around in the sandbox, experimenting with different characters and points-of-view. And I’m honestly having the best time.
Who are your favourite families in fiction? I’d love to hear in the comments! And thanks as always for reading.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider forwarding it to a friend. I’ll be sending these letters a few times per month in the lead-up to my book’s publication. Find me at morgandick.com or on Instagram @morgandick_author for more.
This is great, Morgan. Thank you for all these recommendations! I love messy relationships and novels that showcase the stuff that no one says aloud. One of my more recent favorites was Tom Lake. Ann Patchett is a master!
Thanks for the reading suggestion .. when are you publishing