The Blurry Years

The Blurry Years is an unorthodox coming of age story, coupled with an incredibly twisted mother-daughter relationship, set against the sleazy, steamy backdrop of late seventies and early eighties Florida. Callie, who ages from six to eighteen over the course of the book, leads a scattered childhood, moving from cars to strangers’ houses to the beaches of the tourist towns that litter the Florida coastline. Callie’s is a story about what it’s like to grow up too fast and absorb too much, to watch adults behaving badly; what it’s like to be simultaneously in thrall to and terrified of the mother who is the only family you’ve ever known, who moves you from town to town to leave her own mistakes behind. Finally, The Blurry Years is a lesson in how you are shaped by what you lack as much as what you possess, and how our innate quest and need for connection, in the form of the human touch, can lead us to pain, or great joy. With the sensibilities and tenor of Justin Torres’s We the Animals and Mona Simpson’s Anywhere But Here, Kriseman’s indelible voice and potent story will haunt you in all the right ways.