Dysfunction Junction

by Robin W. Pearson

Overview

When three women receive an unexpected phone call that leaves them reeling, they have no other choice but to reckon with a lifetime of memories they’ve long tried to bury. Only in facing the past will they find their path forward.

Frances Mae Livingston’s firm grip of her family’s destructive history makes her hold her husband and four children even closer. But she’s losing bits of herself while proving to everybody and her mama that she’s enough. There’s no way she’ll repeat her mama’s mistakes, even if it kills her.

Annabelle McMillan didn’t have trouble kicking the Eastern North Carolina dust off her feet. The tough part was replanting herself in familiar soil. Now she’s blending her old life with her new husband, stepson, and unborn child. And battling old memories of abandonment and new fears of rejection.

Dr. Charlotte Winters has built a career around helping others sort through their emotional baggage. She’s also spent a lifetime refusing to unpack her own. So what if Charlotte doesn’t recall all that her mama did to her and what her daddy didn't do for her? Her only mission is to help others help themselves…until the women from her past and the man in her future undo her well-sewn life.

At the junction of healed and hurting, broken and whole, and past and present, three women wrestle with their inability to forgive and forget in this riveting Southern family drama about sisterhood from award-winning author Robin W. Pearson.

• Southern family saga
• Discussion questions for book groups
• For fans of Black authors like Patricia Raybon, Toni Shiloh, and Brit Bennett

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496453778
Publisher:	Tyndale House Publishers
Publication date:	02/06/2024
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	1,012,585
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

What People are Saying About This

Tessa Afshar

Southern charm flows like molasses through barbed conversations in Dysfunction Junction as three sisters strive to find healing from festering mother wounds. Robin W. Pearson’s unique voice is complex and captivating.

Cindy Morgan

A fascinating and insightful story. Beautifully written . . . I felt immersed in the story from the first page. Robin W. Pearson’s writing has that rare mix of depth, raw honesty, while still maintaining an undertone of humor and hopefulness. The perfect book club book for an in-depth conversation. Bravo!

Valerie Fraser Luesse

You can’t help choosing favorites among the Winters sisters. Then again, you’ll change your mind again and again as author Robin W. Pearson brings together three finely drawn characters—Frankie, Annabelle, and Charlotte—who must reluctantly join forces to wrestle the ghosts of their troubled childhood.

Vanessa Miller

There is healing for the broken, and Robin W. Pearson delivers a strong testament to that fact in her latest poetically written novel, Dysfunction Junction. Readers will be stirred and healed after reading this one.

Editorial Reviews

A trio of sisters is at the junction of hurt and healing in the latest novel from inspirational author Pearson. . . . many readers will relate to the sisters and their situation.

Booklist

Robin W. Pearson delicately weaves in all the sights, sounds, and emotions of growing up in the South. This is not the ordinary surface level mother-daughter or sister story, this novel dives deep into the complex dynamic of the origin story of the Winters sisters. . . what a read!

Hope Magazine

10/23/2023

In this textured family drama from Pearson (Walking in Tall Weeds), three adult sisters are drawn back into one another’s orbit after their mother’s death. Frankie, Annabelle, and Charlotte could hardly be more different: pragmatic Frankie has four kids and often served as a stand-in mom for her siblings, but is slowly cracking under the weight of familial obligations; gentle and reticent Annabelle struggles with self-esteem issues; and “workaholic” psychologist Charlotte is single, successful, and expert at keeping others at a distance. When their domineering mother Mayhelen dies, the three reunite to make funeral arrangements and determine the fate of their childhood home. In doing so, they come face-to-face with memories of the woman whose “hold on them was as firm as it was painful.” Charlotte, who’d been their mother’s favorite, must reconcile her memories with the painful stories her sisters have shared, while Annabelle, who’s pregnant with her first child, begins to view Mayhelen in a more sympathetic light. As the sisters ricochet between grief and bitterness, they grapple with the meaning of forgiveness and the limits of family duty in a narrative that’s empathic, energetic, and nuanced. The result is a heartfelt tribute to the bonds of sisterhood. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

01/01/2024

Sisters Frances Mae, Annabelle, and Charlotte bear lasting internal scars from their upbringing. Frances Mae wants nothing more than to create a cozy home full of love and laughter, even as her bitterness toward her mother threatens to override her efforts; Annabelle is cautiously entering marriage and motherhood while struggling to trust the gifts she has been given; and Charlotte is an ambitious psychologist who thrives on helping others but has yet to unpack her own childhood issues. The sisters are busy with their own families and careers, but one phone call brings the past crashing into their lives and draws them back home to North Carolina, where they must reconcile the dubious legacy of their mother Mayhelen Winters and reckon with what really happened to the fourth Winters sibling. While this novel is slower in pace than others by Pearson (Walking in Tall Weeds), readers will enjoy cameos from her other books and the chance to get to know this family, flaws and all. VERDICT Pearson has crafted a realistic family drama that takes a hard look at the baggage many women carry.

Library Journal