Books

How do you break the cycle of intergenerational trauma when you’ve never seen it done?

Twenty-nine-year-old Crystal Constantine is a single parent who cannot see beyond the piles of bills, the threat of eviction, the weight of her past and the relentless needs of her teenage daughter Becky. How can she not drink? How can she not hit? 

Challenged by self-destructive habits and struggling to cope with day-to-day problems, Crystal feels the full weight of her situation when Becky once again exhibits disturbing behaviour at school. When the next school is traditional and Catholic, Crystal’s life takes an unexpected turn, one that offers hope and destruction in equal parts. The question is Crystal. Can she hold it together?

A masterful debut novel that refuses easy redemption, Most Grievous Fault delivers a powerful portrait of motherhood, generational wounds and the complexities of the social welfare system.

An excerpt from Most Grievous Fault:

She turned over in bed, pulled the covers tighter and tried not to hear Becky’s breathing. The city lights danced in through the blinds which were crooked and couldn’t properly be raised or lowered. You had to shimmy them up to get them to stay and work them with both hands to get them down. Slats were missing. She’d dusted them, she’d taken them down and washed them and put them up again, doing her best to straighten them. The room was never dark enough.

She turned over again. She’d told Becky it better work. Goddamn praying better goddamn work, she said, and she stressed the words, Becky clapping her hands over her ears, shouting, “No! No!” And then clutching her arm, pleading, “Don’t . . . don’t . . . don’t say that. Don’t say that, Mom.” No more cheese strings, Crystal told her; no more puddings or pepperoni sticks or apple sauce or fruit cups. Did she know how much fruit cost? Meat? Cheese? Did she understand that money didn’t grow on trees? Did she understand anything? She bought four bottles of wine. Last time, she thought. Last time. She put two more in the cart. She didn’t smoke. She didn’t do drugs. And everybody needed something to relax. So what. Becky told her everybody was a sinner.

“Even Jesus?”

“Except Jesus.”