How is it that pretty young girls with mental problems are deemed “hot,” but grown women whose troubles continue are just creepy and sad? Just look at Elizabeth Wurtzel: She had a hit with Prozac Nation, but her subsequent attempts to milk her misery in print have been rather, well, depressing. What she needs is some Midwestern common sense, like our own Marya Hornbacher, who has left behind the notoriety of her eating-disorder memoir, Wasted, and moved on to fiction. Her first novel explores the paths families take when their worlds are rent by illness: a child’s autism, a father’s depression, a friend’s post-traumatic stress disorder. But instead of wallowing in the worlds of the afflicted, Hornbacher sticks by the characters who are strong enough to pull others to safety with them.
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