Harrowing story, but often hilarious and written with wit.
A family bound by psychiatric illness, disintegrates after death, disinheritance and the wrong choice of coffin.
‘It’s No Joke’ is a memoir of the death of a family. It’s the story of my family’s battle to cope with a mother's psychiatric illness, only to be thwarted at the end by blunder, betrayal and greed.
Days after my father died, I was shocked to learn I had been disinherited; everything would go to my sister. She had rekindled a relationship with an old boyfriend, a man with a history of laziness, a man my father had considered an ‘opportunist'. Meanwhile my mother, a paranoid schizophrenic, who for 30 years suffered a life of drugs, electric shock treatment and all the horrors of mental institutions, fought for her life. News of my father’s death caused her lungs to collapse. Memories of her traumatic, but often hilarious past are triggered off as I watch her slow and painful demise.
In an effort to understand my family, I look back at a colourful history: From early life in Kenya, during the Mau Mau uprising, to teenage life on the streets of a tough northern city.
The story's about having everything, losing it, and finding the strength to carry on when all that's left is a great sense of humour.