"Told in the dry, savant-like voice of 14-year-old Morgan-Lee, this tale of a Southern girl's coming-of-age gives a droll twist to the tropes of dysfunction. Morgan-Lee and her handsome, 'unwell' 15-year-old brother, Ginx, are as emotionally close as twins. They have a secret language — a nonsensical patois that Ginx created — and share a running story about a brother and sister who are given permission to love each other forever and ever. Their mother is an overdelicate flower who's taken to her bed rather than face her son's problems; their father is kind but incapable of taking control; and their younger sister, Dana, has all but abandoned the family, moving into her aunt and uncle's house next door. Everything is proceeding as well as can be expected — one accepts, for example, that it's okay for Ginx to give his sister the occasional concussion — until Morgan-Lee falls in love with her childhood friend, Billy. Neither sibling is prepared for the inevitable as Morgan-Lee's adolescence strains the family bonds and pitches the household into full-blown crisis. Arch, slyly humorous and occasionally overblown ('I felt my jaw throb and swell, drinking the purple and black straight out of that warm evening'), this is an unusual, uncompromising debut. Agent, Bill Clegg. Author tour. (Aug. 3)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Witt's first outing...is the story of a North Carolina family, dysfunctional in touching and sometimes very amusing ways....Follows old trails, yet everything you come upon seems absolutely new. A real wonder." Kirkus Reviews

"[G]ives a droll twist to the tropes of dysfunction....Arch, slyly humorous and occasionally overblown...this is an unusual, uncompromising debut." Publishers Weekly

"A sensitive Southern tale of weirdly imaginative children and hapless adults. Ms. Witt has staked out a territory somewhere between Harper Lee and Flannery O'Connor." E. L. Doctorow

"Broken as Things Are is that book you have been looking for: an unjaded tale of childhood told fondly and masterfully. Nothing less than the firefly of girlhood captured in the jar of Witt's marvelous prose." Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli

"A comedy of sorrows — written with a poet's precision, a compelling story of young love that effortlessly crosses the border between reality and mystery, gathering into itself insights and revelations available only to a highly singular and deeply human imagination." Joseph Caldwell

"An enviable, soul-affirming novel....I'll never forget the characters, or the dilemma, haunting Witt's particular American South." Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy

"An intriguing heartfelt novel, rendered in a voice that is both precise and emotionally provocative." Oscar Hijuelos, author of A Simple Habana Melody