Summary

Bill Clegg's Did You Ever Have a Family begins with Alan Shapiro's poem, "Song and Dance" which starts with the words, "Did you ever have a family". While Clegg separates his book into chapters labeled only with character names, for the sake of clarity, the chapters will be numbered from 1 to 32. After this epigraph, Silas, a pot-smoking 15-year-old, wakes up to the blare of sirens at 6 a.m. in Chapter 1. Before leaving his bedroom, he leans out the window of his home in Wells, Connecticut and smokes from his bong as he listens to the wailing sirens. He wonders if the night before was a dream, then hears his father call his name.

In Chapter 2, June recognizes that she must leave after a gas leak in her house caused an explosion from which her boyfriend Luke, her daughter Lolly, her ex-husband Tom, and...