A masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother’s collapse and the fate of her family
after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s. When Diane Aziz drives her oldest
son Walter from Los Angeles to college at UC Berkeley it will be her last parental act
before falling into a deep depression. When she enters a state hospital her closest friend
tries to keep the children safe and their mother’s dreams for them alive. At Berkeley Walter
discovers a passion for architecture just as he realizes his life as a student may need to end
for lack of funds. Back home in LA his sister Lina watches her classmates prepare for Ivy
league schools and wants to go east with them. And Donny the little brother everybody loves
begins to hide in plain sight coding gaming and drifting towards a life on the beach where
he falls into an escalating relationship with drugs. Moving from Berkeley and Los Angeles to
New York and back again this is a story about one family trying to navigate the crisis of
their lives. With Commitment Mona Simpson has written an important and unforgettable novel.
