June 2017 Debut of the Month.
There was a family of six, three boys aged 17, 15 and 9, and one girl, 12, with a hard-working, frazzled mother and a grossly obese father, Billy, weighing 28 stone. We first meet the family as the 17-year old has just hung himself. Billy becomes obsessed with highlighting this dreadful tragedy. We are in Southern Ireland. Suicide is a shameful stigma. Billy swears to change that. He points out that had this been a serial killer on the loose it would be big news; a suicide is swept under the carpet. They accounted for some five thousand deaths in the past decade and yet little is done to help the prospective victims. Billy vows to lose half his body weight, to be sponsored to do so and to give the money to the Samaritans. He wants to organise a march, make a documentary, alert national awareness and change the nation’s attitude towards this dreadful disease. How he attempts this, nearly ruins his marriage and alienates his other children, fights his critics and damages his body makes for sensitive reading both tragic and comic. This is a brave book about two taboo subjects and how a grieving family copes with loss in widely different ways. Poignant, down-to-earth and horribly true, it is a sad portrait of a hurting family which is eventually uplifting. An important book. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
| Primary Genre | Family Drama |
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