Boop and Eve’s Road Trip takes a look at mental illness and its intergenerational effects. Boop (the grandmother) has a breakdown when her daughter, Justine, is born. Boop’s minimal mothering leads Justine to smother her daughter, Eve, to compensate. Couched in terms of a grandmother-granddaughter road top, the novel takes a serious look at mental illness. The novel doesn’t get bogged down in heavy emotions, though, and is, at times, light-hearted and laden with Boop’s banal Southern platitudes. The road trip allows the women to step outside their usual roles and attempt to deal with long-term regrets, societal expectations, unspoken hopes, the specter of depression, the need to develop self-worth, and the confidence to chase one’s dreams.
The characters are relatable. Eve is dropping out of college as she doesn’t want to become a doctor as her mother, Justine, wishes. Justine carries the scars of a tormented mother and a husband who refused to grow up. Boop, meanwhile, carries a secret that made her unable to be the mother she feels Justine needed but revealing it may fracture her family completely.
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Boop and Eve’s Road Trip (She Writes Press, October 6, 2020) is available through:
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