I tend to rant about dysfunctional family books, but, truth be told, I'm with Kathy T in that most books are about dysfunctional families. The difference is how much art the writer puts into the novel. I don't need to know the details of every incidence of abuse to get the idea. I find it much more effective, once the abuse has been established, to just have hints of what follows. Give me details of the abused person's changing physical, social, emotional, or spiritual state to pace the abuse. And I emphasize "changing." That is what interests me. We all have different ideas of what would be the worst possible abuse, so suggest it without details and we will all embody the abuse with our own worst fears. The novels I hate the most are those that present without redemption or growth.

Cece - from what I know about Little Women, I think you're probably right. I honestly can't remember if I ever actually read it.

Martin - For this discussion, I don't really think we need to agree on a meaning for dysfunctional. Working with your own personal idea of it, can you think of any "family novels" that are not about dysfunctional families? Little Women, yes. Any others? (It might actually be nice to come up with a list for those who dislike reading about dysfunction.)

chris I so agree with you. If there is no hope for growth, redemption, change, there isn't much reason to read the book. Set this House in Order is a perfect example of dysfunction - the narrator has a split personality caused by familial child abuse. Yet the book is about his journey. Fascinating, one of the best books I've ever read about mental illness.

I agree that most books are about dysfunctional families at some degree. But books by Picoult for example, take it to such a point that every character is cardboard, and every offense is just more on the dog pile. A good writer takes the same family and turns it into a book to be honored for its humanity.

BTW, the movie Little Miss Sunshing, if it had been a book, would be a perfect example of what I am talking about.

As far as memoirs - I rarely read them. I find the same stories in novels much more interesting, and usually better written.

Here is a link that might be useful: Set This House In Order

Kathy

Novels:-

How Green was my Valley by Richard Llewellyn.

A Horseman Riding By trilogy by R F Delderfield. In fact, most of what I've read by Delderfield.

The Ella Palmer trilogy by Stan Barstow. And, come to that, we learn a lot about Vic Brown and Ingrid Rothwell's family in A Kind of Loving. Both fairly normal families in different ways - it's the different attitudes from the families which are indirectly a cause of the difficulties of Vic and Ingrid's relationships.

Coronation by Paul Gallico is the story of a family on a single day out - again, a normal family who behave in a normal way. It's a marvellous story.

And a couple of memoirs.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell - a strange family, but one that functions extremely well.

You really don't have to have major dysfunction to have a good book.

Why is it that people like to write about - and read about - seriously dysfunctional families and relationships?I can't answer this question because it mystifies me. I was aware that "dysfunction" has been a prevailing theme in novels, probably since the inception of the genre and before -- think about all those Greek tragedies and Defoe's Moll Flanders. Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy seemed to love having their characters wallow in family misery, to give a couple of nineteenth-century examples. But it wasn't until I joined book groups -- particularly online ones, circa 1998 -- that I realized there's a segment of readers who don't seem to read anything else besides stories about family strife or abused women or children who manage to escape their abusers -- I think of it as the Oprah Syndrome. And there's the closely-related theme, in my opinion, that deals with medical conditions in a flavor-of-the-month way.

All are worthy subjects, but when they are cliched or when I suspect they are used only to manipulate the reader, I get disgusted. That's how I felt about Fall on Your Knees. Another that I think was written as a laundry list of what-else-can-I-have-happen-to-my-characters? is Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True. It got so ridiculous, in my opinion, that I started seeing it as over the top and amusing -- the only way I could finish the damn book for a discussion. However, my way of dealing with it was not appreciated by fellow readers -- one woman got really angry that I didn't take it as seriously as I should've. Another that I read and tried my best to forget because it was so manipulative of the reader was about parents whose older daughter had some medical problem that could be solved by a matching donor so they up and conceived another child to be her saviour -- arrrgh! And what about the one about the young girl who was murdered and she watches her family from heaven -- that one I've heard described as "so uplifting."

Frieda, I think the last one you mentioned above was Seybold's "The Lovely Bones," which I felt was manipulative to a high degree.

I have to agree with Chris, totally -- it's all in the art and in the writing style. Less is often more. In my opinion, there was a lot of art in McCourt's "Angela's Ashes."

As for there not being so many books out there which are not about dysfunctional families ---- my goodness, there are so many. Gail Godwin's novels. The novels of Elizabeth Goudge. All the Jan Karon "Mitford" works. The "Anne of Green Gables" series. I am not saying these are my cup of tea, but what I call the non-Oprah, "wholesome" books are to be found in plenty.

Unlike some of you, my preferred genre is the memoir or the well written biography. For the latter, two about poets Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay come to mind.

Tolstoy has given us the best explanation that I've ever found for why we read about dysfunctional families:

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

I agree with Chris and Woodnymph, though. It's in the art and the writing style, and I think our own personal experiences affect how we receive certain works. Being shown, rather than told, helps, too. I've only read one book by Jodi Picoult, and won't read another. She falls into that category of manipulative (let's amplify and distort the issues) fiction discussed above.

Re Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, I regard that family as quirky rather than dysfunctional. That perhaps explains why I feel charmed by them rather than vexed.

I'm all for quirky, but I'll skip the dysfunctional, thank you! Any book that falls into the "Oprah Syndrome" category is not for me, and there seems to be an increasing number of these books taking up shelf space. I agree with Cece: I don't want to look in on someone else's pain. No matter that they rise above it-I can't get that far in the book. Makes me feel like a voyeur who needs a shower. Ugh.

I would much rather read about characters with relatively normal lives who might suffer a tragedy as part of the plot line vs. characters mired in family dysfunction that IS the plot line. I also don't like being emotionally manipulated by these kinds of story lines.

With all that said, however, two books I absolutely loved were about a family that pretty much defined dysfunctional, A Girl Named Zippy and the sequel She Got Up Off The Couch by Haven Kimmel. Both her parents were barely interested in their children and they lived in relative squalor, but the spunk and good cheer of the narrator made all the difference between "Oprah Syndrome" and, IMO, two very good books. What made the difference was the author didn't experience or recount her childhood as a victim, she just got on with things. She's very funny, too.

I agree with sheri that problems, trouble, tragedy, make for plotlines in books and occur in some degree in everyone's life; but I surely don't want to wallow in them, either in real life or in books.

My life is too busy and too short to waste it reading about dysfunction. I remember when we read We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates for discussion here at RP--never again for me!

I don't like reading about dysfunctional families......perhaps I fear that I might actually recognize parts of my own in there somewhere!!

I feel uncomfortable seeing or reading about sadness or difficulty between people who should be loving one another.
The sense of some kind of entertainment value just isn't there for me.

What I'd like some one to explain, clearly, to me is the definition of FUNCTIONAL FAMILY.

It seems like trying to define NORMAL.

We are all in the mix: functional/dysfunctional, normal/abnormal.
The question is : Are we striving to understand one another and are we learning to live and love more successfully.
The problem is : Many famiies take the fun out of dysfunctional!!

I would define dysfunctional as a place where, consistently, reasonable needs are not met, where reasonable levels of affection, civility and care are not reached, where pain is caused on purpose or by neglect, where responsibilities are not accepted, and where pleasure is taken at the expense of others' well-being, and there is an absence of love. There are, of course, different levels of dysfunction.
functional would be the opposite.

cece, you nailed what I was trying to get out. Reading detailed descriptions of abuse feels voyeuristic. I can't see any benefit in reading it, and sometimes I find a horrible image will stick in my mind.

Chris I also agree about wanting to see hope and change. I think dysfunction is just part of the human condition. The question is what can we do about it?

And I'm starting a list of the books mentioned about functional families. That really sounds inspiring!

Now I know why I don't come over here much youse are not much interested in a good story more that a book has to be about something morally upright. Stepford Wives anyone?

Not sure where you get "morally upright" out of not finding sensational, gratuitous abuse or pain an acceptable part of a "good story"?

And do you consider The Stepford Wives a morally upright book? I don't. A good "brain potato chip" read, but certainly not morally upright.

Pardon?

Are you being serious, or was that an attempt at a joke?

I don't think anyone is saying that we're not interested in a good story. Speaking for myself, I don't have any particular concerns about books being morally upright either. (One of my favourite books is The Talented Mr Ripley - and he is a totally amoral character.)

What we ARE complaining about is the gratuitous manipulation of our emotions for the sake of it. (I feel the same about books like The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, come to think of it.)

Sometimes I think that the very essence of fiction and some nonfiction requires the reader's willingness to be manipulated in one way or another. I don't mind being manipulated as long as I can't see the strings. I hesitate to say that I enjoyed some of the books that have been mentioned above as being grossly manipulative or exploitative, because maybe enjoyed is not the right word. Some of those books I found to be powerful or thought provoking or engrossing, even if they don't exactly qualify as high-brow literature. Sure, I can see why some readers wouldn't like them, but then I don't always see the value in some of the books other people like either. To each his own, I suppose.

However, I will admit that I find anything gratuitously presented by an author simply for shock value to be an insult to my intelligence, discomfiting, and the mark of a poor artist and wordsmith, whether it's extremely detailed, almost pornographic sex scenes (yawn) or over-the-top, sadistically described violence and/or abuse when it does absolutely nothing to enhance or further the story. I think that clever and skillful restraint in such things is much more effective than slapping the reader in the face with them.

>I don't mind being manipulated as long as I can't see the strings.That is it in a nutshell. Of course good writing manipulates the reader, otherwise, why do we cry when fictional characters die? And I did when Amelia in the Peters series SPOILER loses her best friendcolor=white> END OF SPOILER ...but the ending of SPOILER Bel Canto and My Sister's Keepercolor=white> END OF SPOILER just really ticked me off.

If you want read the spoiler, just highlight over the apparent blank space...it's magic!

OK, CC, that is just too cool. How did you do that? Please share.

Oh, ccdrmbks, I want to know how to do that, too!

Rosefolly

Tsk tsk....

Don't you know it's bad manners to ask magicians to explain their tricks?

Nice one, cece!

Martin - What a lively thread this has turned out to be. Thanks for starting it. That was quite a list of non-dysfunctional family novels you came up with. Oddly (or not), I haven't read a single one of them.

Georgia Peach made a comment that struck home with me:
>I think our own personal experiences affect how we receive certain works.Perhaps it's because I spent my childhood in such a "normal" family (a la Leave it to Beaver) that I find dysfunctional-family novels interesting. As an adult, I did become involved in a dysfunctional situation, and I have to admit that I don't enjoy novels about that particular brand of dysfunction at all.

Abracadabra!
I can't claim credit-on the Jodi Pichoult thread I was having difficulty with spacing so as not to leave a spoiler, and Chris in the Valley taught me this trick!

as in other html, you need to bracket your instructions within the
right before you type your spoiler info, type font color=white color=red> in the brackets. When you have finished typing the spoiler info, you must turn off the html instruction, so, inside another set of brackets, type /font color=whitecolor=red>. You use a backslash before the instruction to turn it off...it's hard to see. You absolutely MUST turn it off, as it will continue into the next posts forever, until Martin has to come and turn it off. And, if you don't turn it off, all the posts will just look blank!

Then, it just takes the highlight trick to reveal the spoiler!

So, to make it entirely clear...

If you type

this <FONT COLOR=white>word</FONT> will vanish!

You get

this word will vanish!

But it reappers when highlighted. A useful trick on occasion. It's sometimes used by unscrupulous eBayers to include hundreds of keywords in their listing so that they appear in many more searches.

I'm glad that cece spilled the beans on how to do that amazing little trick (and thanks to Chris as well). I can't wait to try it out somewhere, although I can't promise that I won't use it for nefarious purposes.

"youse"

What?

Huh, I've tried using various HTML tricks here before and they never seem to take. Glad to know that one works.

Sorry for this late response - for some reason the site wouldn't let me log in:

>youse are not much interested in a good story more that a book has to be about something morally upright.

What does morally upright have to do with whether or not we want to read dysfunctional families? Odd

>Oddly (or not), I haven't read a single one of them.

How Green is My Valley - run don't walk to your nearest library and read it!

I have more patience reading about dysfunctional families than I do watching them in movies. Both DH and I had parents who fought, loud and often. There are some movies with that level of intensity that are very hard for both of us to sit through (tho often we manage because the movie itself is good - but its through gritted teeth).

>youse are not much interested in a good story more that a book has to be about something morally upright.Unquote.

Hmmm.

I'm still flummoxed over this one. And chuckling a bit too.
But I am too nice to state the obvious.

Amelia is dead?

My problem was that there seemed to be a narrower interpretation of 'dysfunctional' than I think would be allowed for the purposes of telling a story. If you were in a writing group and you were offered up these symptoms of a families dynamic as a starter for a story what do you think the result would be? They are all indicators of family dysfunction BTW.
* Constant sense of urgency and hurry
* Sense of tension underlying sharp words and misunderstandings
* Mania to escape to your room, car, office, or anywhere
* Feelings of frustration for not getting things done or caught up
* Feeling that time is passing too quickly
* Frequent desire to return to a simpler time of life
* Little me or couple time
* Pervasive sense of guilt for not being and doing everything to and for the people in your life

I'm sorry, I don't see the point you are trying to make.

My very first sentence referred to "seriously dysfunctional families and relationships". And at least one of the examples (A Child Called It) is a memoir about a child who is systematically tortured by his mother.

You seem to be arguing semantics here. I'm not interested in defining whether a family is dysfuctional, or whether they just row a lot. I'm complaining about people writing books about serious child abuse just to see how ghastly they can make their story.

And I have no idea what you mean by there seemed to be a narrower interpretation of 'dysfunctional' than I think would be allowed for the purposes of telling a story. Allowed by whom? And in any case, what difference does it make? This is not a matter of semantics.

I won't argue that a little dysfunction makes for interesting relationships which can be explored. But it's taking things to extremes which I don't like.

And, btw, I would have said that your series of statements are descriptions of the normal state of affairs when there are teenagers in the house. I don't think they indicate a dysfunctional family. On what evidence do you offer them as "indicators of family dysfunction"?

I'm outta here, that tone of yours martin, gotta do something about that. When you start a topic you don't own it but as you think you do you are welcome to it.

bye.

CC - Thanks for sharing the hidden font trick. I'll try to remember it.

bumblebeez-no, Amelia is not dead.

....jaw drops in amazement...

OK, I may have come over as a little terse, but my response was hardly a flame...

Who was that masked man? What was he on about?
I would add Betty MacDonald's books to your Happy Families list. Doesn't the trend of books go in waves? Here's hoping the next trend is about happy people!

I think he/she was whipping out the "clinical" definition of dysfunctional, under which, as has been noted in several news and women's magazine articles, almost every family would sometimes qualify. With that broad definition, carelessly applied by non-professionals, many people found a way to blame their upbringing for all their "problems." "It's not my fault...I'm selfish because my family was dysfunctional. I'm shy because my family was dysfunctional. I can't hold down a job because my family was dysfunctional." A whole generation of parents were astounded to learn that they, who had parented much as they had been parented, had done it all wrong. I have had parents of students tell me they came from a dysfunctional family because their parents punished them for bad behavior. Not beat them...grounded them. Or removed a privilege. But "it stressed them out." That bothers me-it trivializes the struggles of those who were truly abused.

Doh! I was just merrily reading through the many posts on my way down here to this message box to post something clever about the inflation of 'dysfunction'. But CeCe said it better.

About Sebold's Lovely Bones - I would describe the family in that novel as very much not dysfunctional, but more 'functional' than average because of the way in which they all individually find a way of coping with the narrator's death, and then find a way of getting back together as a family.

Other than that, I cannot comment on dysfunctional families. I don't read those books.

Ink: Buh Bye "youse" all.

Martin: You DO own this thread! I have thus proclaimed it. LOL

And here's a little ode to it all....

Me thinks
That Ink's
Definition
Stinks

I am not sure that is helpful. I don't think we need to sink to this guys level. Im also not sure I want to give him much attention if any.

Someone mentioned Oprah books - I had also assumed that most of her selections were of the dysfunctional family/victimization/oh poor me type of literature. But reading this list of her books, I find thats not always the case. Check this link out - I was surprised by how many I had read before they were selected, that I liked (and not surprised by how many so fit what most people think of as Oprah books)

Here is a link that might be useful: Oprah's book club list

Here are a few of her books which I liked - they may be about dysfunctional families (and that is not always bad, as stated before I think most books are about this on some level). But they are all well written books, books that have complexity above merely listing every horror of the dysfunction:

>Stones from the River Ursula Hegi

>Virtuous Woman Kaye GIbbons

>Where the heart is Bette Letts

>The Reader Bernard Slovnik

>East of Eden John STeinbeck

>Cry the Beloved Country

>The Good Earth Pearl Buck

>One Hundered Years of Solitude by Gabrial Marquez

>Heart is a lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

>Anna Karenina

>Night by Eli Wiesel

>As I Lay Dying Wm Faulkner

But I suspect, while these books don't fall in the same realm as This I Know is True or Fall On Your Knees, I think to Oprah and her fans they are all one and the same and are read for the same gut wrenching reason.

I always think of those type of books as "Ordinary People" (from that horrible movie) books and won't touch them. Quirky people are entirely different and what makes many books interesting.
The Girl of the Limberlost ends up being heartwarming even though Mama was a witch throughout most of the book.

My favorite non-dysfunctional family is Catherine Morland's family in "Northanger Abbey." The description Austen gives of them is so bland that they become a contrasting backdrop for all the melodrama of Catherine's imagination, and for the autocratic General Tilney.

However, I think functional, loving families are not going to be the norm in most stories. Just imagine if David Copperfield has a loving family... if Harry Potter has a mom and dad... if Jane Eyre isn't mistreated... if Cinderella's stepmother does her best to love and care for her stepdaughter... there go your stories. Even Catherine Morland has to leave the physical proximity of her family before adventure can find her. The plots depend on the removal of both a nurturing environment and the influence of proper authority.

For me, the thing that makes the difference is the focus of the work. If there's too much detailed attention to abuse and suffering, I'm with Martin. As a child I didn't want to watch as Cinderella was abused--I wanted to know it, but I did not want to see it. I wanted to focus on her patience, her goodness, and her ultimate victory. That's where I want my focus now. I want to feel certain that David and Agnes finally live happily ever after; that Jane marries him, dear reader; and that Harry... well, whatever.

These are just my preferences and opinions--as are all the opinions expressed in this thread--and no two of us will be exactly the same in our tolerance level. Maybe for the sake of this discussion we should come up with a synonym to use in place of "dysfunctional." The kind of dysfunction in question is over the top...quite beyond the realm of "usual evil."

> "Ordinary People"

Oh, I loved both the book and the movie. The book I read a dozen times - it touched a chord with me on many levels. Yes, it was a dysfunctional family, not one that made you cringe, or feel filthy for reading it. Its about real people facing a crisis that they don't know how to deal with - and how people react differently to such things.

Chiming in late here. My schedule's been so crazy lately that I sincerely hope that years from now, my kids don't have serious issues because of my constant running. (tongue firmly placed in cheek)

Back to the topic:
These books with massive dysfunctional families seem to compete with each other.. who can carry it furthest? Who can be most graphic? And so on. The disturbing thing is that many of the books mentioned on this thread as massively dysfunctional have been bestsellers as well. Take Jodi Piccoult (please!) - every lousy book she writes sells well. Why? My opinion is that these dysfunctional families make the reader feel somehow superior. "I can't be that messed up. Just look at (fill in the blank)'s situation!" When readers see just how messed up a family can be, forgetting the line between fiction and non-fiction, the readers themselves feel better. Feel normal. Feel above their peers.

As far as The Glass Castle is concerned, I read it for my book club. I would firmly place it more akin to A Million Little Pieces than in the bio-memoir category. It just seemed too over-the-edge, and her crystal clear memories went back to the age of what? Two years old? Uh, no. That seems highly unlikely.

Modern books about non-dysfunctional families?
Chasing Daylight, Eugene O'Kelly -
this is the memoir of a top executive (CEO actually) who finds out one day that he has a brain tumor and has less than 6 months to live. It is a wonderful, touching look at the way he closed down his life. I get goosebumps just writing about it.

PAM

Ordinary People won the Oscar for Best Movie that year. I have heard that the announcer said "And the winner is...(opens envelope)...Ordinary Movie - er People!"

Perhaps that was a bit unkind. I quite enjoyed the movie - I didn't read the book.

I was walking through our biography section on Thursday and took notice - there are so many memoirs of child abuse. I picked one up to have a look and it was about a boy who was ritually sodomised by satan worshippers. I know that this is sad and awful and that for many writing a book is therapeutic, but I agree - what do we gain from reading so many? And is there any check on how much is true and how much is not? It has been shown many times that it is not hard to get books published which are not based on truth although they purport to be. Personally I read Angela's Ashes but other than that have kept away from this kind of thing.

Movies about it! Arrgghh! I dislike watching people abuse each other-physically, mentally, verbally...even more than I dislike reading about it. I'm a wimp of an ostrich with her head firmly buried in the sand, I know. I know that in Ordinary People Mary Tyler Moore gave the performance of her life-and that the movie Mommy Dearest won rave reviews-but I find them very hard to sit through. Again-watching others' pain and fear and not being able to do anything about it. Years ago, I taught with a woman who maintained that movies like that should be required watching so we "all face up to what's really happening in the world." Do you think that opinion has merit?

Well - for years and decades and centuries, people turned a blind eye to what ever was happening in the home. Horrible crimes were committed against women and children, and no one seem to think it odd - and the victims were often blamed for their abuse (we still see this happening, even now in some communities) So - while I wouldn't say they are required watching, I think there are books and movies out there which help bring to the forefront what indeed is happening in the real world. Because if its in the forefront, if such crimes are seen in the light of day, maybe just maybe people will do something about it when they see it in their own home or neighborhood.

That being said, there is a way to do it, and not to do it. Set this House in Order is the exact opposite of Fall On Your Knees, with the former much better at leading to an understanding of the effect of child abuse. The latter was simply manipulation, with crime after crime from page one to the final last sentence. Like I said, I wanted to wash out my brain afterwards.

Ordinary people is nothing like Mommie Dearest - and really it wasn't about abuse. It was about a dysfuntional family, about a woman who could not bring herself to love the son who survived a boat accident. Abuse yes, but in a different way, with different circumstances. In fact in Ordinary People, the focus in on the child trying to make sense of his depression as much if not more than about the mother contributing to it.

BTW, while I loved Ordinary People, I don't think it should have gotten the Oscar over Raging Bull or Tess, two much better movies.

On the subject of movies, I did like the very dysfunctional Royal Tenenbaums because it was lighthearted and funny. Even In the Bedroom was captivating although the subject matter is depressing. It's when the book or movie focuses in on everyones angst and that alone becomes the theme, plot and climax that I throw it across the room. Angelas Ashes was at least very funny. And Frank was just hungry not sexually abused.