Some of the Parts

In sparse, evocative prose, Cooper tells the story of people: Isak, a ‘gender freak’ to the world at large; Taylor, simultaneously perfect yet useless, and paralysed; mother Arlene, lonely and pill-popping; and Arlene’s brother Charlie, facing the unexpected prospect of being healthy with HIV. Four fractured lives lived in various forms of exile eventually join to re-forge a definition of family from the ashes.