Strange Heaven

She's depressed, they say. Apathetic. Bridget Murphy, almost eighteen, has had it with her zany family. When she is transferred to the children's hospital's psych ward after giving birth to a baby and putting it up for adoption, it is a welcome relief -- even with the manic ranting of a teen stripper and lurid come-ons of a young megalomaniac. But this oasis of relative calm is short-lived. Christmas is coming, and Uncle Albert arrives to whisk Bridget back to the bedlam of home and the booze-soaked social life that got her into trouble in the first place. Her grandmother raves from her bed, banging the wall with a bedpan through a litany of profanities. Her father curses while her mother tries to keep the lid on developmentally delayed Uncle Rollie. The baby's father wants retribution, and her friends don't get that she's changed.