Real Happy Family: A Novel

Written by Caeli Wolfson Widger

Part-time actress, full-time party girl Lorelei Branch isn’t famous yet, but she’s perfected a Hollywood lifestyle full of clubbing, fashion, and the latest juice cleanse. When Robin, her sister-in-law and agent, throws a plum job her way, Lorelei jumps at the chance and auditions to be the new girl on television’s hottest reality show, Flo’s Studio.

Enter Colleen, Lorelei’s pill-popping mother, who wants nothing more than to see her daughter win the fame and glory she never had a chance to pursue herself. But Lorelei’s dream of becoming the next reality star is dashed when she loses the spot on Flo’s Studio to a stunning African woman. In an attempt to defend her daughter against what she calls a rigged contest, Colleen goes ballistic and delivers a racist rant on live television, sparking a national media frenzy. Lorelei flees the limelight, humiliated and broke, with her slacker boyfriend Don and heads for Reno where she begins to self-destruct.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Branch family starts to come apart at the seams. Colleen and her husband, Carl, are quietly drifting apart. Darren, Lorelei’s older half-brother, is stuck in Florida working on a contentious film set while his wife, Robin, continues the tedious regimen of fertility drugs meant to help them conceive a child. Desperate to bring the family together again and make things right, Colleen hatches a plan to stage an intervention for Lorelei on the reality show Real Happy Family. Soon the entire Branch family is entangled in a mission to bring the prodigal daughter back into the fold.

Will Lorelei ever forgive Colleen? Will Real Happy Family air their most sensational intervention yet? All roads lead to a seedy Reno hotel room, where a reality TV crew is waiting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480572089

Caeli Wolfson Widger

Caeli Wolfson Widger is the author of the novel Real Happy Family. Her other work has appeared in numerous literary journals, the New York Times Magazine, and Amazon’s Day One and on NPR. Caeli lives with her husband and three children in Santa Monica, California, where she runs a recruiting firm focused on tech start-ups. More about Caeli can be found on her website, www.caeliwidger.com; on Facebook at www.facebook.com/caeliwidgerauthor; or on Twitter at @wolfwidge.

Reviews for Real Happy Family

[ennie_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lorelei wants to be a reality star, and comes oh so close to getting a part on the young, fashionable gal pal show Flo's Studio. When she loses, her stage mother Colleen (who had her own aspirations a generation before) unleashes a drunken rant on national TV. Mortified Lorelei flees to Nevada with her shady boyfriend, sinking into drugs and despair. Now estranged from her daughter, Colleen decides that the way to patch things up is to stage an intervention on another reality show, Real Happy Family. She works with its producers to make that happen. What could possibly go wrong? These people are not always sympathetic, but interesting to read about. Received from NetGalley.