Borders Book Group

What happens to families and relationships when people find it impossible to say the words, "I love you?" Fathers failing sons, mothers failing daughters, wives and husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends all creating unhappiness and pain because they just can't admit to their emotions. Iris is someone who has experienced much pain in her life, and who early on was beset by schizonphrenic periods which led to her being institutionalised and separated from her family. Her daughter Vivie wants to break free of the shackles which she perceives as her inheritance, while Matthew longs to be with her and yet fails in his attempts to tell her. It takes a special event, Iris's first public speaking event following her breakdown, for the decades of mistrust to give way to reconciliation. We leave the characters on the brink of a resolution which will require immense courage from all sides. If a family's generation gap can bravely be dissolved, then there can at last be hope for happiness.