Trading Dreams at Midnight

I liked this book and feel it's written very well. It's not a happy story but not many are that deal with families who has a member with mental illness.

I love Nan's story of coming from a God-fearing Georgia family and moving to Philadelphia, PA after WWII and making a good life for herself and not even 20 years old. Falling for a man, Alfred, who has a drinking problem but loves his wonderful daughter, Alfreeda and her mother, Nan, and dealing with any upsets in life by drinking his way to the bottom of a bottle. He finds Freeda's ups and down overwhelming and realizes she has a real problem when she's so young. Freeda runs away as a young woman only to return with a baby, Neena, and Nan stands behind her helping all she can but so afraid that Neena would have her mother's same mental health problems then a few years later Freed has another daughter Tish, who at least Freeda deals with her pregnancy and the baby's father around her parents. As the girls grow so does their mother's mental illness, Neena wants to be her mother's caretaker and Tish is so afraid of her mother she leans on her grandmother. Freeda leaves the girls in the middle of winter 11 y.o. Tish calls Nan but at 15 y.o. Neena doesn't want to live with Nan again. Nan runs a very tight ship--go to church and be a GOOD girl is what she wants but always giving Neena a harder time than Tish but Neena fights Nan all the way. So begins the story of how Neena goes looking for her mother and all the upsets in their lives this causes. Neena is like Freeda in that she calls every few years and all Tish and Nan can hold onto is that she's still well and alive. Nan has been hard on Neena all these years though so their relationship is very strained but both Nan & Neena love Tish.

The book tells the story of their relationships in life by some flashbacks as well as present day. Interesting book IMHO