Adrift

Dean (Ice Town) chronicles a dysfunctional family’s implosion in this grim domestic thriller. Drew and Peggy Jenkins live with their 14-year-old son, Samson, on a canal boat in an unnamed Midwestern town where they’ve relocated after Drew forced them to sell the bungalow they inherited from Peggy’s mother. The domineering and abusive Drew—who’s seen in the prologue locking his parents in their bedroom and burning down his childhood home—won’t let Peggy work and makes little money himself. As Samson faces bullying at school, Drew tries to make his artistic dreams come true by plugging away at his novel. Secretly, Peggy has been writing one too, in between volunteer shifts at the local library. When she finishes her manuscript before Drew completes his and excitedly tells him of her success, including interest from a publisher, he’s thrown into an especially intense rage, pushing the family to the brink of disaster. Dean subjects Peggy and Samson to one humiliation after another at the hands of Drew but fails to generate enough narrative tension to justify the onslaught of misery. There’s a certain dark pull to Dean’s characterization of the sociopathic Drew, but this ends up being too predictable for its own good. Agent: Kate Burke, Friedmann Literary. (Feb.)