When I was four years old, a neighbor nearly ran over me with his station wagon, and my sisters, parents, and I each tell a slightly different version or part of the event we think we all witnessed. Such is life, where factors like relationship—to one another and to God—age, maturity, and feelings impact our perspective. And such is Dysfunction Junction, in which my characters have unique ways of viewing and handling their shared life experience. But how they see things doesn’t mean that’s how it was. Or how it has to be.
In this story, I show how God can reveal, restore, and recover what’s broken, whether it’s an old house, relationships, a fragile faith, or lies disguised as truth. The women in Dysfunction Function explore what love really means and see how God continually meets their need for relationship, family, and community in unexpected ways—through adoption, the bonds of sisterhood and friendship, multigenerational interactions, and marriage.
The story takes shape around the passage from Psalm 27:10, “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.” Through the lives of my characters, I show how God’s love is unfailing, even when others let us down. He makes provision for our need for love, truth, and shelter, even when we are unaware He is working on our behalf.
I hope readers see that truth doesn’t necessarily have an “s” and that the God of all truth will open our understanding if we seek Him. Through this book, I encourage them to explore heart-related issues related to sibling dynamics and birth order, forgiving someone who hasn’t asked for it; and loving in spite of, not because of. When people read Dysfunction Junction, I want them to search their hearts and lives for evidence of their own dysfunction and seek God for healing and restoration.
Frankie, Annabelle, and Charlotte discover in Dysfunction Junction that mother-daughter relationships take work, and they don’t always look the way you want them to or expect. “Mothering” doesn’t come naturally to some; it takes God to move the heart. A nurturing relationship can occur between siblings and by others in the community, and the absence or the abuse of this crucial connection can impact a family for generations.
It’s so challenging to “just keep swimming,” like in Finding Nemo—to avoid the distractions of social media; celebrate, not imitate, other authors and their stories; and ignore that voice that whispers worries and what ifs. What helps is to focus on what God has called me to do, to courageously and faithfully “do the work” (1 Chronicles 28:20).
The Bible forms the basis of the truth in my fiction, so it’s the Book I open first. While I love Christian authors, I also enjoy Maeve Binchy’s impactful stories about families in small towns, Liane Moriarty’s way of crafting mystery and interesting characters, and Bebe Moore Campbell’s use of compelling dialogue and contemporary settings.
I’m currently researching a novel that explores the idea that “your sins will find you out.” It’s set in a family-owned bookstore in a (you guessed it!) small, North Carolina town. Also, I’m blogging about what God has taught us during our recent renovation and in our continued adventures as a homeschooling family.
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.