The Splendour of the Occasion - Katy Chance

A belated love letter to an often unlovable father. An acknowledgement of an overlooked brother. An attempt to comprehend why family dysfunction can take several generations to understand and finally end. And an examination of the nature versus nurture debate around mental illness, as well as "the lucky gene." From England to Wales, Scotland, Singapore and South Africa, in The Splendour of the Occasion, Katy Chance revisits her and her family's lives (and some deaths) to try and make sense of what, collectively, they might mean for her future. There is, as convention dictates, too much alcohol and anger, as well as the incapacity of family members to communicate with each other. With frank introspection, but without being mawkish, she explores and tries to explain why some are fortunate enough to watch from the sidelines as a family unravels and spins off its self-destructive core. And, in an effort to ascertain whether her own DNA is informed by the frailties which fashioned the rest of her family, she asks why suicide is, still, the death that dare not speak its name.