Mary Rose MacKinnon is a successful author of YA fiction doing a tour of
duty as stay-at-home mom while her partner, Hilary, takes a turn
focusing on her career. She tries valiantly to balance the (mostly) solo
parenting of two young children with the relentless needs of her aging
parents. But amid the hilarities of full-on domesticity arises a sense
of dread. Do other people notice the dents in the expensive
refrigerator? How long will it take Mary Rose to realize that the car
alarm that has been going off all morning is hers, and how on earth did
the sharpest pair of scissors in the house wind up in her toddler's
hands? As frustrations mount, she experiences a flare-up of forgotten
symptoms of a childhood illness that compel her to rethink her own
upbringing, her own family history. Over the course of one outwardly
ordinary week, Mary Rose's world threatens to unravel, and the specter
of violence raises its head with dangerous implications for her and her
children. With humor and unerring emotional accuracy, Adult Onset
explores the pleasures and pressures of family bonds, powerful and yet
so easily twisted and broken. Ann-Marie MacDonald has crafted a searing,
terrifying, yet ultimately uplifting story.
