From Edward St Aubyn’s damaged addict to Roald Dahl’s ingenious bookworm, Hannah Beckerman picks her favourite tales of families at war Toxic families in fiction go back as far as the art of storytelling itself. Greek mythology is awash with dysfunctional families, from Kronos swallowing his children to ensure they never usurp him to Zeus and the Olympians overthrowing their parents, the Titans. The Old Testament gives us fratricide with Cain and Abel, sibling rivalry with Joseph and his brothers, and the devastating effects of parental favouritism with Jacob and Esau. Fairytales delight in wicked stepmothers, neglectful fathers and evil sisters. For 3,000 years or more, storytellers have known that there is no narrative so powerful as the warring family. It doesn’t take a classicist, theologian or literary critic to understand the draw. We love stories about family because it’s the one thing we all have in common: however different our experiences, we all begin life in some form of family. Dysfunctional families in fiction reassure us that ours is not the only one fraught with tensions, conflicts, rifts and rivalries. Continue reading...
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