Mary Anne is haunted by the death of her sister and worn down by depression. She's not a good wife and she's not a good mother. Then, one morning, she wakes to find her life completely unfamiliar to her, and she leaves her family to become a country singer. Vivian vows to be nothing like her mother, Mary Anne. Wounded by her mother's lack of love and emancipated by her lack of attention, adolescent Vivian looks for knowledge in dark places: news reports about child murderers, fashion magazines, boys' bedrooms, and small acts of violence. But when Vivian grows up and finds herself unhappily married and miserable in motherhood, she, like her mother before her, sees no choice but to leave. Bereft at her parents' separation, Evie struggles to cope with her mother's absence and wonders how to make Vivian stay. This dysfunctional family's dynamics play out across three generations: through the curious explorations of childhood, the tense anticipation of adolescence, and the fraughtness of parenthood. Thanks for Having Me is a moving and relatable novel-in-stories that explores what we give to our families and what we take away from them - whether we like it or not.