Everybody, from time to time, will experience an annus horribilis , but this year is going to be one that none of the family is going to forget in a hurry. Susan is locked in a custody struggle with her soon-to-be-ex husband Tom, who is perfectly prepared to play dirty if he has to. Because of her husband’s sudden celebrity Debbie is faced with lifestyle changes for which she is unprepared. Oliver and Chel are on a terminal downward slide due to a pact that Oliver had thought he made with his wife years ago, and Dot’s complacent life is disintegrating before her eyes. Only Jerry’s path seems edged with primroses. Answers must come from within, and finding definitive answers has never been a Nankervis talent. But family life has never been quite like this before either, so can any of them, even if not all of them, weather the threatening storms simply by behaving like a proper family?