Three generations are forced to confront the pervasive violence that hangs over them like a ghost, and the distances to which they have carried their forebears' pain. We. Are. Family. is a sensitive and rugged episodic novel which ruminates on the damaging idea of Australian masculinity with tenderness and dry humour. Paul Mitchell unravels the twisting threads that tie us to the past and the trauma that is handed down through families. Taking cues from Tim Winton's The Turning, it is a cyclic meditation on the slow grind of life and the interconnectedness of identity and family.