Author Description

Set in a bleak and rain-bedrizzled Glasgow, this is the story of Donald Pinelli, whose mother Trixie is not only crazy, she's psychic too—not a good combination, especially when it means she's convinced Donald is cursed to die by drowning on his eighteenth birthday. As if that it isn't enough, Donald has to contend with a gangster father, siblings who hate him, and a best friend who betrays him. Things seem like they can't get any worse, when suddenly an unexpected encounter with a cantankerous turtle in a rundown zoo abruptly sets young Donald on a crash course in survival. Years later, Trixie's death brings an older but not much wiser Donald back to Glasgow—to attend her funeral, sort through his childhood memories, come to terms with his failures, and forge a new life for himself without his carapace of bitterness and resentment.