Nobody can depict family disorder better than David Vann, but I have to admit I found this pretty tough going. To say that this family is dysfunctional is soft-soaping it. Galen and his female relatives, in a class by themselves, are described in other reviews, so I won't rehash the details but give my impressions. It is almost as if the author felt he had to bring out every trick in the book, every unsavory characteristic he could summon, and distill them into these people. Even the befuddled Grandmother isn't wholly an innocent, but she is happily out of it most of the time, for which she can be envied. It is a real page turner, if not a happy one, and definitely not for the reader looking for friends between the covers of a book.