We Never Took a Bad Picture - by Ashley N Roth (Paperback)

About the Book

A dysfunctional family ignores years of infidelity, abuse, and alcoholism, all coming to a biting end at a 55th anniversary party, where grief and trauma rears their heads.

Book Synopsis

It's been thirty years since the Joyces made a final pact to save their failing marriage. Gloria Joyce knows the anniversary party she's planning is more than a celebration-it's a crack in the promise she made to her husband after losing their teenage son.

Artie has spent decades retreating into the mundane and orderly world of his grocery store to avoid facing the choices he made as a father and husband. Will the party finally force him to confront the past-or shatter the only routines holding him together?

When their estranged daughter Autumn returns, she is forced to navigate the strained relationship with her mother and own daughter, along with the festering guilt surrounding the role she played in her baby brother's untimely death. As the party looms nearer, the family faces new tragedies, forcing the Joyces to confront what they've buried beneath decades of curated memories and a crafted veneer.

With timelines and voices that weave seamlessly between decades, We Never Took a Bad Picture explores the curation of memories and legacies, intergenerational complexities, and the quiet battles fought behind closed doors.

Review Quotes

"A literary tour de force."

-Independent Book Review

"Represents a vivid, glowing vision of change and hope that is especially needed in a world riddled with loss and angst."

-Midwest Book Review

"Sweeping elegantly through decades of American life while bursting with intimate, visceral close-ups, We Never Took a Bad Picture lays bare one struggling family's heartaches and betrayals, their moments of joy and forgiveness and acceptance, as they attempt to hold on-to make it last in spite of it all. I won't forget Gloria, Artie, or anyone else in this absorbing tale. It belongs on your shelf of Great American Novels."

-Susannah Felts, writer and founder of The Porch.

"In We Never Took a Bad Picture, Ashley N. Roth has written a beautifully complicated story. But it's a complicated story we all know from our own lives. From the most picture-frame worthy family to those on the obvious brink, all families have a past that can't be forgotten, and there's nothing like living so many years together with unresolved trauma to change the fire of love into the grind of work. Roth's lyricism gives our lives the heft and present-ness it deserves. On a literal level, how Roth organizes her book proves time really is the revelator. We see the beginnings and endings almost simultaneously: nothing is lost over the churn of years. Most important, though, is we also see those glimmering instances that make the day worth it-those true moments of bliss. Those are what we live for, no matter how quickly they might come and go. This book makes that point so apparent. It's a message of love."

-Chet Weise, writer, musician, editor at Third Man Books