(reviewed by JD Jung)
#CommissionsEarned
“You have no idea what it’s like being your sister. I’ve never had a day of rest in my life. Chasing after you like a dog. Leaving pieces of myself behind. And every time, you act as if that’s how it’s supposed to be. You lead, I follow, no questions asked.”
Our unnamed narrator has a toxic relationship with her manipulative older sister, Debbie. From drug use and drug dealing, drunken nights at the local bar, and shoplifting, she just shadows her. Debbie has never been there for her, and rehab didn’t change anything.
When Debbie suddenly disappears, our protagonist doesn’t know how to proceed. Should she look for her? Could she be dead? All she knows is that she is finally free. Or is she?
Both women grew up in Los Angeles with a mother who suffered from severe mental illness. Their father abandoned them. They all heard their grandmother’s stories as a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union; their great grandfather apparently murdered by the KGB. Is their mother’s condition due to her internalizing their grandmother’s stories?
We follow our protagonist’s daily life as a recovering addict with a new job while eagerly waiting to find if she even looks for Debbie. In the meantime, she meets a psychic who is intent on resolving her own ancestors’ traumas in Moldova. She questions if that even makes sense, or should one honor them by making choices they were not free to make.
There’s a lot to process and think about here. Do the tragedies of a family’s past affect future generations? Can toxic and addictive relationships be blamed on a specific person, or are they patterns in one’s psyche?
You’ll ponder these questions in All-Night Pharmacy, while immersing yourself in a captivating story about a young woman’s troubled life. Highly recommended.
