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Broken as Things Are
From the day that Morgan-Lee is born, her extraordinarily beautiful and withdrawn older brother, Ginx, is obsessed by her. Inhabiting their own parallel world, the two communicate through a secret language and make-believe stories; when Morgan-Lee begins to explore friendships beyond their closed circle, however, Ginx becomes increasingly disturbed. In luminous prose, Martha Witt explores the intense and private world inhabited by these siblings and the inevitable and necessary pain of their separation.
- GenresFictionLiterature
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2010
About the author
Martha Witt
11 books3 followersMartha Witt was born in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Currently she resides in New York City. "Broken as Things Are" was her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 27, 2019
Wonderfully original coming of age story of a girl who needs to find her own language and identity
apart from her abusive, autistic brother. The story is sometimes slyly humorous and sometimes heart-breaking when Morgan is struggling with not being pulled under by family members and malevolent forces in the form of "badly influential" friends who want you to grow up as crooked as they are. Quietly Southern Gothic, the book's prose is captivating and makes reading a fresh experience.
apart from her abusive, autistic brother. The story is sometimes slyly humorous and sometimes heart-breaking when Morgan is struggling with not being pulled under by family members and malevolent forces in the form of "badly influential" friends who want you to grow up as crooked as they are. Quietly Southern Gothic, the book's prose is captivating and makes reading a fresh experience.
August 26, 2019
Not every author can effectively write a young narrator. The most famous success in that genre, I believe, is Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Witt does not try to handle as momentous an event in her novel as Lee did, but there are various seismic upheavals for the narrator on a personal level that deal with class, disability, wealth, abuse, and coming of age. Witt cleverly sidesteps the potential linguistic boredom of a young narrator (she has to say only things one could believe from the mouths of babes, as it were) by making Morgan Lee and her brother fascinated (obsessed?) with words. Nothing truly horrifying happens, which may be why this didn't make the best-seller list. I won't be scarred for life by reading it, but it certainly made me think and feel for the narrator.
July 21, 2020
Dysfunctional familial life probably is replicated in some form in many American families. This was an interesting book that was pretty easy to follow. The characters were well developed and had engaging personalities.
July 6, 2023
This book takes so long to set the scene that it’s actually incredibly boring until about page 220!!! Half of the book is told him metaphors and add trains of thought that make no sense. I wish the ending part of the book was actually the beginning.
August 24, 2020
Trigger Warnings: underage drinking (the youngest character who drinks being twelve), animal cruelty, physical abuse (as well as various forms of other abuse), incest, and statutory rape.
I’m gonna be honest about the positives first.
On one hand, the writing and the setting was brought together well. As a family drama all the characters are well rounded and you get a sense of the family dynamic. The southernness of the novel felt experienced and not forced, especially in the language. On the other hand, this book is an example portraying anyone with a disability as a negative stereotype.
It has a slight advantage above other books including disabled characters that the characters are more well rounded than straw men, but the autistic/Aspergers character in this book is presented as unfeeling, sexually aggressive, physically abusive, and deserving of being put away in a mental hospital. I understand that it is “the point” (and that should never be “the point” when it comes to writing a character on the spectrum). I understand the main focus of the book is toxicity and not disability, and the toxic behavior presented in the book isn’t always necessarily related to disability, (the words “autism” and “Aspergers” are never officially used outside of the blurb and it’s possible that the character in question is undiagnosed in the time period the book it set in), and its goal is to explore toxicity in general as opposed to specifically using a character who is an abuser to demonize disabled people. But every instance any disability is brought up uses negative adjectives. It’s true that there are people in the real world who are marginalized who are also abusive, but to present both so thoroughly in a fictional work without firmly separating the two is a presentation which is reckless and dangerous to people in the real world. It’s rarely stated that the animal cruelty the character exhibits or his fixation for the end of the world is specifically related to his Aspergers, but it’s never denied either. There are multiple other characters in the book who, in my opinion as a neurodivergent person, could be interpreted as being on the spectrum, but of course the only one who actually is only has the most visible and negative traits.
It’s made apparent how disability is portrayed when compared to another character in the book who has a physical disability. He has a wandering eye, but any struggles with his eyesight or visual impairment are practically non-existent outside of symbolic usage. Despite the fact that he commits some pretty despicable actions towards our main character as well, he remains the love interest until the last page. To compare, his eye is described as “chased after his (dead) father…nothing the doctors could do could tempt it back” and the Aspergers is “a black stone in clear water”. Disability is off-putting unless it doesn’t impact their lives or the lives of the people around them in a significant way.
I also found that, like the feelings towards disability, a lot of the themes take a “neither confirm nor deny” stance on what it presents. When our main character slut-shames a statutory rape victim (which is what she is even though the term is never used), is that the narrative doing it also so we’re meant to be on her side, or is it just reflecting the regressive environment our main character is in (it’s mentioned she only calls her a derogatory name because her brother would say that, furthering the “it’s only bad when the disabled character does it!” narrative, but she still says it)? The narrative never confirms or denies.
There is hardly ever any levity in the entire book outside of highlighting the absurdity of a traumatic situation. This entire book feels like the flashback a character would have to their abusive past which they overcome from a different narrative instead of it being the entire narrative itself, which is only dread. So yeah, if you’re looking for a book including disabled or neurodivergent central characters, this book will make you angry. This book was written more than a decade and a half ago, so I hope that the author has actually done research or spent time with a someone on the spectrum by now. But the book is still out in the world and as it stands does more harm than good. I can see people who enjoy family dramas enjoying this or women seeking validation out of their trauma (unless you’re a fourteen-year-old statutory rape victim, then you’re a “whore”, tough luck!), but it’s all trauma and zero recovery.
I’m gonna be honest about the positives first.
On one hand, the writing and the setting was brought together well. As a family drama all the characters are well rounded and you get a sense of the family dynamic. The southernness of the novel felt experienced and not forced, especially in the language. On the other hand, this book is an example portraying anyone with a disability as a negative stereotype.
It has a slight advantage above other books including disabled characters that the characters are more well rounded than straw men, but the autistic/Aspergers character in this book is presented as unfeeling, sexually aggressive, physically abusive, and deserving of being put away in a mental hospital. I understand that it is “the point” (and that should never be “the point” when it comes to writing a character on the spectrum). I understand the main focus of the book is toxicity and not disability, and the toxic behavior presented in the book isn’t always necessarily related to disability, (the words “autism” and “Aspergers” are never officially used outside of the blurb and it’s possible that the character in question is undiagnosed in the time period the book it set in), and its goal is to explore toxicity in general as opposed to specifically using a character who is an abuser to demonize disabled people. But every instance any disability is brought up uses negative adjectives. It’s true that there are people in the real world who are marginalized who are also abusive, but to present both so thoroughly in a fictional work without firmly separating the two is a presentation which is reckless and dangerous to people in the real world. It’s rarely stated that the animal cruelty the character exhibits or his fixation for the end of the world is specifically related to his Aspergers, but it’s never denied either. There are multiple other characters in the book who, in my opinion as a neurodivergent person, could be interpreted as being on the spectrum, but of course the only one who actually is only has the most visible and negative traits.
It’s made apparent how disability is portrayed when compared to another character in the book who has a physical disability. He has a wandering eye, but any struggles with his eyesight or visual impairment are practically non-existent outside of symbolic usage. Despite the fact that he commits some pretty despicable actions towards our main character as well, he remains the love interest until the last page. To compare, his eye is described as “chased after his (dead) father…nothing the doctors could do could tempt it back” and the Aspergers is “a black stone in clear water”. Disability is off-putting unless it doesn’t impact their lives or the lives of the people around them in a significant way.
I also found that, like the feelings towards disability, a lot of the themes take a “neither confirm nor deny” stance on what it presents. When our main character slut-shames a statutory rape victim (which is what she is even though the term is never used), is that the narrative doing it also so we’re meant to be on her side, or is it just reflecting the regressive environment our main character is in (it’s mentioned she only calls her a derogatory name because her brother would say that, furthering the “it’s only bad when the disabled character does it!” narrative, but she still says it)? The narrative never confirms or denies.
There is hardly ever any levity in the entire book outside of highlighting the absurdity of a traumatic situation. This entire book feels like the flashback a character would have to their abusive past which they overcome from a different narrative instead of it being the entire narrative itself, which is only dread. So yeah, if you’re looking for a book including disabled or neurodivergent central characters, this book will make you angry. This book was written more than a decade and a half ago, so I hope that the author has actually done research or spent time with a someone on the spectrum by now. But the book is still out in the world and as it stands does more harm than good. I can see people who enjoy family dramas enjoying this or women seeking validation out of their trauma (unless you’re a fourteen-year-old statutory rape victim, then you’re a “whore”, tough luck!), but it’s all trauma and zero recovery.
December 23, 2023
martha 🩵 does it w such restraint and sensitivity. & morgan-lee is the bildungsroman hero i needed at 13/14... not to mention a GEMINI
(oh, also, for anna: incest)
(oh, also, for anna: incest)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 9, 2013
Broken as Things Are is by far the best book I’ve read all year! And normally I try to read three to four good size books a month, although books like Broken as Things Are might present a problem to that number. It’s not the kind of book you want to read fast. Think of it as your favorite food, and you only get a little bit. Savor.
The writing is superb, the dialog drips with a realism I’ve known all my life living in the South, and the use of descriptive highlighting and paralleling the dysfunction and socially accepting is brought together in an unforgettable cast of three-dimensional characters a reader couldn’t possibly forget.
The characters were so memorable, especially the struggle between Ginx and Morgan-Lee, that it becomes the glowing edges of the plot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a writer weave something so beautifully by allowing the characters to drive the words with such a demanding force. Morgan Lee and the journey she takes into womanhood and then Ginx, her brother, where her affection is questionable and solid pulling her in a different direction is heartbreaking to read. Ginx suffers from autism, and needs Morgan Lee, clings to her, but their journeys have different paths and where other characters drift onto these Southern Gothic roads.
I want to read more of Ms. Witt’s work! And being a North Carolina resident, I plan to recommend this book as a one for the list.
The writing is superb, the dialog drips with a realism I’ve known all my life living in the South, and the use of descriptive highlighting and paralleling the dysfunction and socially accepting is brought together in an unforgettable cast of three-dimensional characters a reader couldn’t possibly forget.
The characters were so memorable, especially the struggle between Ginx and Morgan-Lee, that it becomes the glowing edges of the plot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a writer weave something so beautifully by allowing the characters to drive the words with such a demanding force. Morgan Lee and the journey she takes into womanhood and then Ginx, her brother, where her affection is questionable and solid pulling her in a different direction is heartbreaking to read. Ginx suffers from autism, and needs Morgan Lee, clings to her, but their journeys have different paths and where other characters drift onto these Southern Gothic roads.
I want to read more of Ms. Witt’s work! And being a North Carolina resident, I plan to recommend this book as a one for the list.
July 19, 2009
and not worth fixing
I admit it: I was taken in by a blurb. Front and center on the cover of my paperback edition of Broken as Things Are, is this misleading recommendation by E. L. Doctorow. "Ms. Witt has staked out a territory somewhere between Harper Lee and Flannery O'Conner."
Doctorow is correct only in the sense that Martha Witt's prose style is both polished and modest. But in this book she has wasted her time and mine on a tale not worth telling.
Broken as Things Are tells the story of a young girl, Morgan Lee, and her family who are being torn apart by the illness of her psychopathic brother. (Here again the cover is misleading in stating that the brother has Asperger's Syndrome. But Asperger kids are not sadistic, manipulative, or progressively disassociative.) Her brother's illness envelopes Morgan Lee in sadomasochism and incest - obvious horrors to which neither narrator nor children pay any attention.
The author provides a bizarre solution to Morgan Lee's predicament. She falls under the spell of Sweety-Boy, a Really Bad Girl who simultaneously seduces Morgan Lee from her brother and scares her straight. In the penultimate scene, Sweety-Boy accepts a transferrence of Morgan Lee's problems and runs off naked into the night. Never mind that this is cheap fantasy - it preserves the moral ambiguity that is the book's only excuse.
I admit it: I was taken in by a blurb. Front and center on the cover of my paperback edition of Broken as Things Are, is this misleading recommendation by E. L. Doctorow. "Ms. Witt has staked out a territory somewhere between Harper Lee and Flannery O'Conner."
Doctorow is correct only in the sense that Martha Witt's prose style is both polished and modest. But in this book she has wasted her time and mine on a tale not worth telling.
Broken as Things Are tells the story of a young girl, Morgan Lee, and her family who are being torn apart by the illness of her psychopathic brother. (Here again the cover is misleading in stating that the brother has Asperger's Syndrome. But Asperger kids are not sadistic, manipulative, or progressively disassociative.) Her brother's illness envelopes Morgan Lee in sadomasochism and incest - obvious horrors to which neither narrator nor children pay any attention.
The author provides a bizarre solution to Morgan Lee's predicament. She falls under the spell of Sweety-Boy, a Really Bad Girl who simultaneously seduces Morgan Lee from her brother and scares her straight. In the penultimate scene, Sweety-Boy accepts a transferrence of Morgan Lee's problems and runs off naked into the night. Never mind that this is cheap fantasy - it preserves the moral ambiguity that is the book's only excuse.
September 6, 2008
i bought this one home from the library, kind of on a whim. the library was closing and i was still reading the jacket cover so i just took it with and figured i'd give it a go.
books about children or from a child's perspective always interest me. it's hard to write convincingly from that point of view. i think this author did a really good job of it.
the characters were heartbreakingly real, and the title really fits the story. at first, i didn't quite understand the "lucca" stories and the whole thing with the words between her and her brother, ginx.
but as the story goes on, you really get a feel for the relationship between ginx and morgan-lee. how hard lonely their world is, and how morgan-lee is growing and maturing and yet ginx hasn't changed and does not want not want morgan-lee to change either.
it's a disturbing story, and a sad story. a coming of age story where the character is mature beyond her years, understanding something is different about her family early on, and trying to grow up and be normal despite it.
books about children or from a child's perspective always interest me. it's hard to write convincingly from that point of view. i think this author did a really good job of it.
the characters were heartbreakingly real, and the title really fits the story. at first, i didn't quite understand the "lucca" stories and the whole thing with the words between her and her brother, ginx.
but as the story goes on, you really get a feel for the relationship between ginx and morgan-lee. how hard lonely their world is, and how morgan-lee is growing and maturing and yet ginx hasn't changed and does not want not want morgan-lee to change either.
it's a disturbing story, and a sad story. a coming of age story where the character is mature beyond her years, understanding something is different about her family early on, and trying to grow up and be normal despite it.
August 24, 2014
Broken as Things Are doubles as a domestic novel about siblinghood and a Barthian post structuralist narrative about the worlds that get tied to words, not just the words' meanings but their sounds and shapes and the depth of their memories. It's about the secret filial language that translates as closeness and how exactly the closeness can become twisted and brutal, even when it's at its most loving. Plot-wise, it is about Morgan-Lee and her brother Ginx, who suffers from what is never named in the novel but appears to be autism. What unfolds is a domestic not-quite-bildungsroman, set against a North Carolina backdrop, focused on Ginx's particular difficulties and the way those difficulties frame our protagonist/narrator's life. There are some uncomfortable themes here, but they are approached from a place of innocence, something that somehow both amplifies the discomfort and diffuses it.
February 9, 2015
You must read this book! This is an extraordinary work. I have a lot of experience with Autism, and this book revealed that familiar world to me in a way I had never before understood it. Much more than a book about Autism, so many scenes and lines in here ring with such truth and beauty that I copied them down in a notebook where I keep my favorite lines and passages from best-loved books. As a sibling of someone with Autism, I broke down crying at one point because the story touched a nerve and put into words things I have never been able to articulate. There are many books out there, but this novel's deep emotional pull and its singular odd, descriptive language makes it not only an extraordinary work of literature but also an in-depth look at a world that few people understand. The writing is luminous (as the cover promises).
This book should be on the top of the list for anyone who wants to read great literature.
This book should be on the top of the list for anyone who wants to read great literature.
January 19, 2009
This is a story of two siblings: the strange Ginx, who cannot articulate his emotions, and Morgan-Lee. The two share a secret language where words have meaning for how they sound and not what they represent. They pretend together and Morgan-Lee tells stories that help Ginx understand what it means to be loved or to love someone. But Morgan-Lee is growing up, and her sometimes abusive brother is jealous of her interactions with other friends. This was an enjoyable book and I felt like I could understand the frustration of trying to sort out emotions. But I was left a little confused at the end, and unsure what exactly had taken place. Maybe just as Ginx has trouble understanding emotions, I can't always understand written descriptions of action and comprehend the non-verbals or the emotions the characters are experiencing, either.
Did Not Finish
June 27, 2007Meh. This is weird and I got bored.
July 2, 2008
Loved the three kids and their mixed up mom and aunt. So many problems. Honest story.
March 30, 2009
I wished I liked this more, since the author is from Hillsborough and the book is set in Hillsborough, NC. The book is very southern gothic, but it's a little too turgid for me.
July 2, 2010
I gave this book my "3 chapter" try and gave up.
Read
June 15, 2008Sandee I think you will like this one
September 17, 2009
A little weird but compelling.
April 22, 2011
Not a fan of this one. Don't read it.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews