Ordinary Funny Tragic

A darkly sharp, wryly funny and entirely delightful novel about bad mothers, problematic families, forgiveness and finally - reluctantly - growing up.

Crimson's life has been indelibly shaped by her magnetic, clever, self-absorbed mother, Villy. When Crimson was nine, Villy fell in love with another man and left her marriage (and her children) for him. And now, as Crimson is on the cusp of turning thirty and single-parenting a three-year-old son (with all the messiness, chaos and love that entails), her mother has – inconveniently, dramatically – declared she is dying. Crimson doesn't quite believe it, and neither does Marty, her brother. But, summoned to Villy's bedside, they go, like moths to a flame.

Villy, it turns out, was not exaggerating. There is sickness, there is dying, there is a funeral. And, most importantly, there is a will. A will that requests Marty and Crimson to escort their mother's body home to her family – well, the rest of her family – in England.

Crimson and Marty are entirely unprepared for the melodramatic and eccentric family that awaits them. Nor are they ready for the grief that is coming their way like a runaway horse, nor the fact that their lives are going to change ... They are also not prepared for the duck.

Sharp, spiky, dark, hilarious and irrepressible, Ordinary Funny Tragic is about learning to forgive the people you love most in the world for being flawed human beings. Just like you.

PRAISE

'Jabour is smart and silly and knows exactly how and why we're all lying to ourselves. I finished it equal parts entertained and grateful' Bri Lee

'With such perceptive wit, Bridie invites you into this book as if you're a friend she's known for decades' Miranda Tapsell