Is this a series of short stories linked to make a novel or a novel divided into short stories? Does it matter? No. Is it autobiographical? I don’t know.

I am not a massive fan of short stories and so enjoyed the connectedness of these stories – all using the same characters and the on-going battles, some of which are started in the first and my favourite story, In Flux. Here Escoffery explores the question often shouted, presumably at him: What are you? Black? White? Puerto Rican? Hispanic? It’s this desire of people to categorise and when you don’t neatly fit any category it is hard. People don’t say Jamaican-American as they would African-American and so even that isn’t acceptable. The seven following stories then develop this theme and others such as parents having a favourite child leading to sibling rivalry, separation, no friends and a girlfriend whose parents don’t approve of you.

Set mostly in Miami, there is a long-standing argument over their mother’s house. Who gets it when she dies. The older, and favourite son, Delano, says it will come to him by automatic right unless his younger brother, Trelawney, survives him. There is a lot of anger in this book as Trelawney is forced to take jobs such as cleaning toilets or serving drinks but when he starts to look on Craigslist for extra work the book becomes a little unbelievable – hired to hit a woman and give her a black eye, hired to watch two people having sex – maybe that sort of thing does happen when you are desperate. If all of this isn’t enough, Hurricane Andrew hits the family and is almost the last straw until they discover the much-prized house is sinking.

It’s a lesson in how racism, poverty and climatic events can undo a family and have them scrabbling for their existence and who they are.