Rebecca Wait's fourth novel I'm sorry you feel that way is out in paperback on March 2nd. Described by i-news as "one of the richest explorations of family dysfunction I’ve read", this is a fabulously funny and moving story of a family in all its shades of dysfunctionality. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think.
It's a brilliant read and there's just so much in here to reflect on and discuss. I loved the characters and the non chronological timeline which reveals just a little bit more of the story as we go.
Rebecca and I talk about the idea that every sibling grows up in a different family and we consider intergenerational trauma and whether holding onto the phrase that "difficulty makes people difficult" enables us to feel empathy for characters we might consider repugnant. I was especially engaged by Rebecca's portrayals of mental illness vs wellness in several characters and the discussions around "labels" and whether they are helpful or at times horribly stigmatising and reductionist. Her scenes of the "unravelling of Hanna" and way she writes about the fine liminal space between sanity and madness is some of the most effective fictionalisation of psychosis I have ever read.