This is a social drama, a psychological dystopian descent, about the self-destruction of a classic mum, dad, two children and cat family. The story slips genre into black comedy and momentarily into horror of the plausible variety, always so much more disconcerting than ghouls and zombies. This is a novella, which a fast reader may well consume in one sitting. The book could easily have been longer, though possibly that would have diluted the constantly disturbing buzz in its pages.

   This story is very well written, with clear flowing prose and only a few typos. The story is narrated through the first-person mother with a very realistic feeling voice. I felt that I was sitting listening to the mother’s distressed, sometimes questionable, and less that sober first-hand narrative, rather than, as we are directed to believe, a story cobbled together by the author from episodic conversations.

   My only complaint about the story was the abrupt ending. I would have liked to hear the completed story of the family from the tragic peak we are left on. I feel a need to know if disintegration or renovation of the mother to child relationships was the eventual outcome.

   I had a sort of personal interest in the story that only added to its poignancy, one that is all too common in western culture. I have lost a parent through the ravages of alcohol. But believe me, such a direct connection isn’t a required ingredient for one to get the full taste of this sad tale.

   I have an issue with the cover as on the book at this date, September 2017, in that it really doesn’t reflect the content. The big youthful, blood-smeared, smile gives the impression that one is in for some sort of zany horror comedy. That isn’t the case. Too many books are falsely sold, or not, by misleading covers. This book doesn’t need a creepy cover to sell it, just the publicity it deserves, which I like to think will be boosted by this and other reviews. True or not, the family disassociations and disintegration explored in this social drama are tragically reflected to varying degrees in many real lives.

AMAZON LINK

   Not everyone will read the story the way I did. In fact, wading through twenty or so of the at this point in time 94 Amayon.com reviews, I couldn’t find any others that were reading the exact same message.

  This is a story that’s omnipresent voice explores the decent of an adolescent girl into madness. At the books end, I imagine her institutionalised, living her conscious life entirely in an invented world of her imagination, while kept ‘physically safe’ by psychiatric nurses.

   The setting of West Virginia is irrelevant, other than that I read that it is a place where the author worked as a psychotherapist. One can read in the deprived corners of any state on Earth.

  The book is comic, by line, sometimes treading in the deep crud of extreme social and physical abuse and poverty, by chapter. Lacy Dawn is the daughter of an abusive PTSD suffering father, and a down-trodden and objectified mother. We read about how, especially after the murder of her best friend she starts to tip over the edge, eventually losing even remote connection with reality. As she descends into the protective cocoon of her imagination she engages in a range of abnormal behaviour typical of traumatised children, and especially of those children that have being exposed to the very worst of adult behaviour. Drugs, guns, and sexual exploitation of all sorts are the bread and butter of everyday life in the neighbourhood of this poor child.

   If one chooses to read that way, she ‘really’ goes on an adventure across space, engaged to marry a robot that is slowly turning into a physically ‘entire’ man. If you don’t, and I don’t. The distant shopping Mall is the furthest she ever gets from home.

For my perspective, this is book is conceptualised brilliantly, and executed well. The writing is good, as is the pace of the plot. Perhaps the ending is a little weak, but by that point where could Lacy Dawn’s mind go that could be more distant from reality, and more protective of what little is left of her sanity. The satirical plot, the harsh existence which became an escape to the stars, or the closed spaces of the mind, is very clever. The ending was appropriate, as Lacy builds her own sanctuary, one in which she is at last in control of her life.

   Where could a sequel go? To rehab from drugs and mental recovery, or further into the stars?

   The message: “however life shits on you, don’t shit on the children” is delivered so harshly that only the comical prose could carry the ‘normal’ reader to the stories psychotic conclusion. If we don’t protect and fight for wholesome family values, our societies will all decay into an impoverished, disease ridden, Hobbesian Hollow.

Lacy Dawns mental space may be unique, but unfortunately isn’t that abnormal. Well, that is the view of a relatively sane man who only understands one psychology, my own.       Get well, Lacy Dawn and let Faith rest in peace, but never her death be hidden from the judgment of society.

AMAZONLINK

One struggles trying to make sense of this two act play in which absolutely nothing happens. Well, okay, stuff does happen, such as the two main characters Estrogon and Vladamir talking about nothing in particular, and Pozzo and Lucky coming in and leaving, and a little boy entering to tell the heroes (if that is what you wish to call them) that Godot is not coming today, but is coming tomorrow. However, in general, as a friend suggested, this play is a lot like Seinfeld: absolutely nothing happens.

I am trying to decide whether I gave this play an 8 (four stars) because it actually is a really good play, or whether I am so baffled by the play that I will simply gave it an 8 just because of the fact at in the end, my head hurts. I am going to say it is a good play, but unlike, say, 2001 a Space Odyssey, opinion on this play is harshly divided. Another friend got given free tickets to see it, and she went with a friend. Halfway through the play her friend thought that it was finished, so he got up and left. She didn't tell him that it was actually the interlude until they were halfway home. Now that is messing with somebody's head.

But now about the play. It is based around two men, Estragon and Vladamir, who are standing by a willow tree waiting for Godot. However he never comes, but they seem compelled to wait for him. One must remember that Beckett wrote the play as a unity. Everything you need to know about the play occurs within the play and everything is outlined in the conversation. Vladamir and Estragon are generally portrayed as hobos, but there is nothing in the play, with the exception of Estragon's pants being too big for him, and it being held up with a cord, that suggests anything of the kind. Still, I don't think Beckett intended on them being hobos. When asked about Pozzo, he simply indicated that it was Pozzo. I was a bit baffled by Lucky, though it is clear that Lucky is a man, however he seems to behave like a dog, to the extent that he is attached to Pozzo with a cord and leads him around the stage. Pozzo enters act one with sight but act two as blind, and the boy does not seem to be the same boy in both acts.

This play is a classic example of the Theatre of the Absurd, and it is definitely absurd. It looks at the meaninglessness of life, and remembering that beyond the stage there is nothing, it is interesting that when the characters try to look back into the past there is no memory of anything. In fact they don't even remember the events of the previous act. It is as if the only reality is the now, and everything else is clouded with mist. This is clear at the end when Godot once again does not turn up, and they try to kill themselves (and fail because they are too heavy and do not have a long enough rope). There is no hope into the future, and there is no guarantee that Godot will actually arrive (and Beckett emphatically states that Godot is not God, and if he wanted him to be God, he would have written him as such).

Sometimes I wonder if Beckett is laughing at us. I say this because he writes a play with no plot, no point, and no purpose (much like life) and we spend a lot of time and energy attempting to get to the bottom of this play when there actually isn't anything to find (much like life). Me, I am baffled by Pozzo and Lucky (though the interpretation above suggests that Pozzo represents commerce and Lucky represents the arts and philosophy, and that Pozzo must control Lucky for fear that Lucky will expose him for the fraud that he is). There seems to be no reason why they enter and leave the play, but then I guess that is the play. I would really like to see it on stage one day though.