Plum

Anderegg debuts with a tour de force of second-person narration. It begins with J in second grade, raised alongside her older brother by their alcoholic mother, who enables their father’s physical abuse. J catalogs the rules she follows to keep the peace: “The rule is dinner on the table by 5:30.... The rule is make sure your friends don’t come inside.... The rule is never tell anyone.” But even these measures can’t save her brother from regular beatings. When he leaves home, J is left to fend for herself, and she becomes a cam girl as a teenager. Her adulthood proves rocky as she contends with her childhood trauma (“It feels exactly the same as every other sad and hopeless tiring day”) and holds out hope for her brother (“Where your brother lives the sky must be a bright bright blue. He must be warm. He must be having a nice sandwich for lunch. He must have moved on with his life”). As J scrapes together a measure of sanity and stability, the story culminates in a triumph of endurance and love. Anderegg’s depiction of familial dysfunction and its lasting effects is pitch-perfect. (Apr.)