V C Andrews
Only because it’s you, WhyNot my sweet. Pimp away!
“The Wasp Factory” by Iain Banks might work. There’s a fair bit of family dysfunction going on there.
I’ve got your dysfunctional family right here:
Chinese Cinderella.
Not me, thankfully.
Born Again by Kelly Kerney. A teenager’s discovery of Darwin’s The Origin of Species while in an extreme Pentecostal household; think “God Warrior” mom, though the whole family has their own sets of issues.
Like thisreviewer, as a 26 year old guy I probably shouldn’t be admitting to liking this book, but it is, in fact, very good.
Thanks!
So here’s the really [del]fun[/del] [del]odd[/del] terrifying part: it’s a true story. When our grandmother died, she left behind a gajillion home movies, which we all knew about and had seen as kids - normal 1950’s happy family crap - and hours and hours of audio recordings and a huge folder full of typed papers, on which was written in Sharpie: Must Read After My Death, which none of us had known about. My brother took a couple of years and edited them into a really disturbing but excellent documentary story called Must Read After My Death. There are no narrations, no talking head interviews with people of today, just her audiotapes and home movies, edited into a narrative form, with a few simple titles here and there for context.
Reviews have been really good (with a couple of exceptions - Kurt Loder hated it, which I personally consider a good sign). I’m reading a lot of comparisons to Revolutionary Road, and they almost all say how this is more effective because it’s real.
You can stream it off the web for $3 for a 3 day license, I think it is. It’s been in theaters on the festival circuit for the last year (or two?) but it’s official release is New York only, plus this new anyone-can-get-it-on-the-web model that his distributor is trying out.
There is no “abuse”, but a whole lot of dysfunction. It’s a pretty disturbing film, to be honest, but I think it’s brilliant.
I’ll leave you to find it on your own, so I don’t run too far afoul of the new and nebulous rules about spamming. Googling the title will hook you up.
(Again, for clarity, he’s my step-brother, but as my mother was babysitting him before I was born and my father married his mother - Anne in the movie - when I was a wee sprout, I almost never refer to him as my step-brother. He’s just my brother.)
Oh wow, Whynot. I just read the Onion’s review of that film earlier this week.
And I read something in the Chicago Tribune a little while back. Damn, that’s a weird second ‘encounter’ with the film! Thanks for sharing!
You think that’s weird - think about seeing your family photo album in the Tribune! Seriously, though, I’m super proud of him and this film, and I think I’d be just as excited about it were I not related to him.
Oh, and remember that whole “convince my husband to wear a suit to a wedding” thread fiasco? That was Morgan’s wedding! 