UNDER OUR ROOF

A Pennsylvania congresswoman and her son recount his struggles with addiction.

“When I did Harry’s wash,” writes Dean, “inevitably a lighter or condom or something equally troubling would bubble up out of his pockets or call my attention as it banged around in the dryer. It all comes out in the wash—that’s what I would think as I furiously folded his clothes.” Another troubling sign was Cunnane’s transformation from bright student to disaffected slacker. We learn why on the next page: He was smoking marijuana and crushing and snorting Percocet pills. In alternating voices, both mother and son confess to believing that their childhoods were idyllic, but the latter’s was more fraught. Introduced to alcohol and cigarettes while attending an “expensive all-boys academy surrounded by the harsh reality of North Philly,” he quickly graduated to more powerful substances. Though Cunnane’s narrative is often sententious (“Drugs became like a mistress I knew I had to hide but would risk anything for”), readers will sympathize when he describes the terrors of an ambulance ride to the hospital following an allergic reaction exacerbated by the pills and of the subsequent withdrawal. Dean’s passages move among hope, despair, sentimentality, anger, and exasperation; while occasionally moving, the prose doesn’t always match the gravity of the situation. While the book is clearly well intentioned and may prove useful to readers dealing with their own illness or that of a loved one, it pales next to richer, more memorable narratives such as Mary Karr’s Lit, Cameron Douglas’ Long Way Home, and Erin Lee Carr’s All That You Leave Behind (as well as her father’s investigative The Night of the Gun).

A modest contribution to the literature of recovery.