Books & Audiobooks
Little Crosses is a debut novel by Sabrina Reeves that feels like the culmination of years of extensive study into the depths and crevices of the human psyche. This is a story of the dichotomous nature of dysfunctional families: the deep sense of betrayal and regret against a backdrop of intense loyalty and love. For anyone who has had experience with familial alcoholism, this story will resonate at many levels.
The story opens with the Wolfe family facing a crisis: mother Nina is suffering from alcoholic dementia and there is no option left but to have her moved to a facility that can not only detox her safely, but also continue to care for her in her fragile state. Siblings Oliver, Cassie and Jack have driven every possible road to help their mother continue to live independently but the inevitable outcome of Nina’s disease requires help beyond what the children can provide.
This story is told through Cassie’s perspective and she takes the reader on a journey of this family’s life from 1977 through to 2018, with a focus on Nina’s exuberant personality and the subtle ways in which the cracks in her thin veneer began to deepen and spread. In some ways, the children led an idyllic life and in others, it was a battle against a force of nature too strong for them to manage or understand. Nina’s strength is antithetical to her desperate need to not be alone. The children hang on by a thread to the rollercoaster ride that is Nina Wolfe’s life.
As the disease brings them all to its inevitable conclusion, we realize that at the heart of all of the dysfunction, there is a steadfast love that binds the entire family together.