Take David Sedaris’ self-deprecation and deep sense of the absurd and toss in a pinch Erma Bombeck’s happy skewering of domestic life: there you have M. A. C. Farrant. In this witty, affecting collection of personal essays, Farrant has a gift for making those observations that would be harrowing, if they weren’t so funny, and here tackles the absurdities of family life from both sides of the generational divide: as a young girl growing up in a dysfunctional family in the 1960s, and as a mother herself to three troublesome teenagers. The pieces are funny and sharp, completely original while describing an utterly familiar world.