RESOLUTIONS

Four struggling children try to deal with a mentally ill mother in this debut novel.

Jasmine Anderson is a hustler and survivor. Her husband’s death left her with four kids—Molly May, Myron, Joey, and Allie—and little means to support them in Columbus, Ohio. Jasmine is a believer in self-help books and vision boards. Molly May tells readers: “Mom likes to say that we’re a goal-driven family on an upward trajectory.” But her children see no future success with the constant fighting, no father, and little supervision. The family fractures when Allie, the eldest, leaves home; her departure inflames her mother’s illness (“The physical symptoms that began twenty years ago are acute when I’m stressed, and there is nothing more stressful than being abandoned by your child,” Jasmine notes). Then Molly May develops deafness in one ear and Allie suffers an assault and returns home. (The retired janitor who found Allie on a bench “believes she was stabbed and beaten, maybe more.”) After Myron lands in juvenile detention for his part in a youthful stunt that kills a friend, Allie can no longer watch her family implode and becomes the matriarch. She essentially kicks her mother out of a household she no longer wishes to be responsible for (“You girls can raise the boy better than I did,” Jasmine asserts, referring to Myron). With supervision and structure, the children all achieve stable jobs and become the unlikeliest success stories. The narrative then jumps ahead to 2029, when Jasmine is released from prison in California for identity fraud. Armed with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, she must decide if she can confront her children, apologize for the chaos and abandonment, and finally heal her family. In this ambitious and absorbing novel, Knox fully commits to her stark depiction of a dysfunctional family fractured by mental illness. The author delivers a grim, realistic tale with rich details that deftly show Jasmine’s flaws. When Allie returns home after the attack, she is welcomed with an acerbic comment from her mother: “One deaf, one dumb. What did I do to deserve this?” But at times, this family’s intense suffering and arduous journey make for a difficult read. And some readers may find the timelines that jump around and the frequent narrative shifts off-putting.

An engrossing but disjointed tale about familial love.