“Miles from Ordinary” by Carol Lynch Williams

This slim novel won the Schneider Family award last year for best book about the disability experience. As usual, I had meant to read it, but it took a while to work my way through the list. The action of the book takes place in a single day and very much in the mind of our protagonist, Lacey. The activities of her life lead to a constant stream of flash-backs as she works through the challenges of being a child with a mentally ill mother. Her internal self-talk is a steady back-and-forth between the normal wishes of a young teen, and the challenging, almost impossible demands of being a child looking after an adult. Even when Lacey is around others, she is alone, feeling isolated in a prison of her mother’s delusions. It is well-written but a painful read. I could identify with Lacey’s isolation, the craving for normalcy (a better title would have been “Miles from Normal” but that probably didn’t scan as well) and the panicky feeling of being overwhelmed at her own inability to make things right. Lacey is fourteen. This is the fourth book I’ve read in the last month with a 14 year-old protagonist. Must be something about being fourteen. Lacey has to act in ways far superior to her chronological age, but at the same time, she is a scared young girl who cannot fully appreciate the circumstances surrounding her life. Despite its short length, the dizzying emotional swings and floating time focus make this a book for more mature readers. Lacey’s mother is supposedly a severe depressive, but she comes off more like a schizophrenic. The achingly slow climax, building throughout most of the book, is truly frightening and disturbing. The wish for a peaceful resolution is left to the reader’s imagination as the denouement is left fairly open. It is not an easy book to read. It is not a happy book. But it is a powerful one, and deserves the accolades it has received.