The fiction that ruined Jeanne Darst's family isn't her father's novel or his obsession with F. Scott Fitzgerald. The fictions that bring her parents down are the lies they tell themselves. Her father is convinced that literary success is just around the corner, and that it's fine to let his family starve in the meantime. Her alcoholic mother thinks she's still a debutante; therefore, getting a job herself is out of the question. So Jeanne's not-small task as writer and alcoholic is (like everyone's) to not become her parents--specifically, to be honest about her struggles, even if that means acknowledging her affinity for doing things the hard way.

It took a while for this book to come into focus for me, but I think that's to its credit. There's an arc here, built from a careful mosaic of (often LOL-worthy) anecdotes. Darst has a performance background, and I feel like I would have liked hearing her read passages out loud. She captures her parents' and sisters' voices hilariously, while finding her own.