The War For Gloria is a huge, occasionally heartbreaking story by Atticus Lish about a young man, Corey, who is forced to come of age before his time. Corey is at high school, his parents carrying out a strange non-relationship when his mother Gloria is diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Her decline is rendered in tender, harrowing detail throughout the novel, and early on it appears that Gloria’s story will be the central strand of the narrative.

It is a surprise, then, that Lish manages to cover so much other ground, including Corey’s foray into cage fighting, and his tumultuous relationship with his father. As with most novels of this length, there are flaws. Corey and Gloria are excellently captured, but other major characters – Edward and Adrian, respectively Corey’s father and neurotic faux-friend – feel like caricatures simply there to serve the plot.

There are also a couple of unconvincing tonal shifts in The War for Gloria, especially in the final third, which turns violent, then procedural. Here, the writing becomes rushed: Lish appears to be trying to make a point about America’s broken legal system, but it feels tacked-on rather than fully explored. With more focus, Lish could have written a classic.