Book overview
"Toxic mothers, absent fathers, angry sisters and enraging brothers - this sharp, wise comedy explores difficult family dynamics, from all-too-relatable emotional patterns to the inexplicable agonies of mental illness; yet it's also one of the funniest novels you'll read this year."
-- The Guardian
From the comedically brilliant author of Cry Havoc, a wry, domestic comedy of manners that follows two generations of sisters as they grapple with unstable parents, mental illness, and the general tumult of adulthood.
Alice and Hanna haven't spoken in years--but where better to reconnect with an estranged sister than at a funeral?
Years earlier, their mother Celia and aunt Katy had their own tempestuous relationship. Katy was pretty and easy to love; Celia was unassuming and "unprepossessing," according to their mother. But in her teens, Katy began to change, in bits, then bounds-- until finally, her doctors arrived at a diagnosis that then took all the family's energy, though they refused to admit it. Celia was on her own, developing hang-ups that come from a family suffering in silence.
When Celia has her own children--twins Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, and their eternally disapproving brother Michael--her parenting is, predictably, unconventional. Alice and Hanna seem caught in the unforgiving hands of fate, doomed to repeat the cycle of Celia and Katy as Hanna spins out of control upon entering university.
At the wryly beating heart of I'm Sorry You Feel That Way are sisters, grappling with how family dynamics curdle or calcify over time. Bookended by funerals, where the foibles of human nature and the humor found at the nexus of denial and despair are inevitably on display, I'm Sorry You Feel That Way is a whipsmart addition to a growing body of work by a gifted stylist.
