A Family Matter - Claire Lynch
I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
I wasn't at all prepared for the emotional devastation that this quiet, unassuming novel was going to wreak on me. Maybe watching Train Dream immediately before reading this softened me up, but I suspect that the final chapters would have brought me to tears regardless of the frame of mind I went into A Family Matter with.
On the surface this is a very simple narrative. What makes it truly shine is the care with which Lynch draws her characters. There's a complexity and depth of emotion to Maggie, Dawn, and Heron that feels very rare, and very real. Each of them feels complex and alive, and even when they make decisions that hurt each other, that we the reader could easily point to and say "bad", it's impossible not to empathise with the position each of them is in and to understand why they do what they do.
As a queer person who grew up under Section 28 this hits particularly hard. There's rage simmering beneath the surface that threatens to boil over constantly. This is angry, it's sad, it's warm and full of love, and the ending is both heartbreaking and joyful at the same time.
Don't skip this one.