"My Phantoms" by Gwendoline Riley

My Phantoms is narrated by Bridget, but we don't learn much about her through the course of the book; rather, we are treated to an intense character study of Bridget's parents (but mostly her mother). 

The pictures painted of Lee and Helen ("Hen") are so vivid--quirky, detailed, solid--that I am low-key consumed by trying to figure out if Gwendoline Riley is describing her actual parents. They seem so real (if not necessarily likeable). My only problem was trying to hear Lee make his constant obnoxious pronouncements in a British accent; he kept sliding into an American voice in my mind. Anyway, a quick internet search for an answer to this question has not provided me with a satisfying conclusion. I suppose it's most likely that the characters are a conflation of Riley's parents, other people she's known or come in contact with, and her imagination. 

This book is a short, absorbing read, with its engrossing depiction of Bridget's non-relationship with her dad and strained contact with her mom, but I found it fell apart somewhat towards the end, through Hen's illness. Still real, but almost too real, with the sense that I was reading about mundane boredom which was . . . kind of mundane and boring.