Dickey’s powerful writing is what draws us back again. The plot hinges on key moments and events in the narrator’s life – her mother’s depression, her parents’ disintegrating marriage, bullying at school, an affair, a sexual assault – and each of these is brilliantly vivid in its own right. The mother’s disappointment in marriage is passed down to the daughter: “‘Never marry a man just because he seems kind, OK? It might seem like kindness is the most important thing, but kindness has an expiry date, and then all you’re left with is stupid’ – a pause – ‘and inconsiderate.’”
