Last Things

This book is haunting me.  I finished it a few days ago and I'm still mulling it over.  It's told from the vantage point of an eight year old girl who has an incredibly close bond with a mother who is losing her grip on reality.  The mother's decline into madness is slow and insidious.  By the time she really starts to spiral, her daughter has become an emotional hostage.

Last Things are described by the protagonist's mother as things that stand the test of time, like stones and oceans and fossils.  Unfortunately, in this case, mental illness can be a lasting thing as well.  One of the most poignant bits of horror in this book is when the mother announces that Grace will end up just like her.  Try as we might, it can be very difficult for an apple to fall very far from its tree.  It's only after having children that you start to worry about which of your faulty genes may have filtered through.

Grace is at an impressionable age where she wants to believe equally in her father's scientific logic and her mother's ethereal folk wisdom.  She lives in a very confusing world where the people she trusts the most behave in unpredictable ways.  Sometimes it's fun, but often times it's frightening.

If you come from a long line of crazy, like me, it's refreshing to hear from someone else who's been through the ropes.  It makes you feel a sense of solidarity.  I'm not saying that Offil's book is autobiographical, I'm just sayin'.

I like the eight year old's vantage point.  Making the transition from a little kid to a big kid is tough, especially when you don't know who or what to believe in.  I know I didn't at that age.  I'm still trying to figure it out.