We're All Damaged by Matthew Norman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Matthew Norman bears witness to the inevitable family dynamics that play in our heads. It's as though he has been in our parents' out-dated, Mid-Western living rooms reminding us that who we thought we became is still suffused with who we remain. Andy Carter had an uneventful young life In Omaha until his wife left him for someone else. He leaves the safety of his insurance job to tend bar in Greenwich Village. A family crisis calls him home, and he realizes just how conservative his mother has become on talk radio when his family is targeted by local LGBT activists. He is charmed by an unusual young woman who ends up having questionable ties to his ailing grandfather. Along the way Andy has to make amends to old friends, and he has to accept the idea that his parents are human. Going home intersects with the realization that his ex-wife will never be happy, and it has nothing to do with him. Heartbreak, hilarity and healing blend to make Norman's book into the edgy must-read that it is. Readers ill recognize their own feelings of humiliation, regret, self-acceptance and the idea that going home doesn't mean you have to stay there.


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