---

The nuclear family - loving mother, breadwinning husband, and adorable children - has been, for half a century, the hallmark of the American experience. But what happens when dream turns to nightmare as the result of drug addictions and childhood trauma? A dysfunctional Southern family, pieced together by fate, is faced with the harrowing effects of various vices - drugs, alcohol, sexual deviation and the urge to kill.

The slow and steady destruction of these lives is played out scene-by-scene in Jay Clifft's debut novel, "A Fog Over the Quails."

"A Fog Over the Quails" is a highly convoluted novel, full of unrealistic situations and unbelievable plot twists. It tries too hard to be suspenseful and surprising, and ends up in a deadly cycle of predictability. It could be characterized as Jerry Springer put on the page - although its intentions are noble, the book reads as far too trashy. It attempts to bring to light the effects of habitual drug use and psychological trickery on an American family, but does so in a manner that distracts one from the real meat of the story. At a whopping 406 pages, Clifft could have cut the tacky moments to make the novel more pointed and eloquent. Many characters enter the story devoid of description, leaving a blank space where mental images should be, and making visualization nearly impossible. And the characters that are described are done so inconsistently, with ever-changing features that confuse and frustrate the reader.

But the most dissatisfying aspect of "A Fog Over the Quails" is its multitude of grammatical and punctuation errors. Words are misspelled left and right, cliche phrases are sprinkled over mediocre dialogue, and punctuation fluctuates. Even the spacing of the paragraphs is misleading - large spaces make you think a new section has started, when in truth, the passage simply rambles on for a few more pages.

"A Fog Over the Quails" is a lengthy and exceedingly involved novel full of twists and turns only seen on daytime television - not exactly intellectual food for the mind. Breanne Palmer attends J.P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs, Fla., and is a writer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's TeenLink.