There's something twistedly thrilling about watching full-grown adults lose their minds over juvenile drama. Kathleen West's delicious debut, Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes, features a posse of upper-middle-class snowplow parents making way for their gifted children. But unlike similar setups like Big Little Lies, there's no violent mystery at the heart of the story. West relies instead on commonplace but no less contentious conflicts: Do politics belong in the classroom? Should parents involve themselves in the everyday goings-on of their children? What about teachers? How far is too far?
West, a former middle and high school teacher, addresses these questions first and foremost with Isobel Johnson, a progressive English teacher at Liston Heights High School. She's determined to atone for her family's past wrongdoings by encouraging privileged students to see "multiple perspectives," i.e., read from a point of view other than upper-middle-class, male, white, heteronormative and nationalistic. But when parents protest this perceived deviation from curriculum--or, rather, deviation from the status quo--tensions bubble. Tack on the ever-growing popularity of a Facebook gossip page for Liston Heights parents, with a suspicious number of posts from an anonymous insider at the school, and Julia Abbott, a particularly over-attentive Liston parent, can't wait to wade in. That is, until she, too, is sucked into controversy.
This juicy but thoughtful story is a treat for parents who understand the frustrating temptation to hover--as well as their grown children who learned to break free. --Lauren Puckett, freelance writer