Zig-Zag Boy: Motherhood, Madness and Letting Go

Zig-Zag Boy tells the true story of a boy and his mother as they navigate life after his psychotic break. It is both a moving lamentation for things lost, and brave testament to the people we become in the most difficult of circumstances.

When Tanya Frank finds her nineteen-year-old son Zach rerouting the wires of their landline, she finds herself thrown into a parallel world: Zach’s world. In Zach’s world, the phones are bugged, helicopters are spying on them and his friends are in the mafia.

Nobody can be trusted, not even his mum.

Tanya feels unmoored from everything she thought she knew, and desperately tries to make sense of her son’s condition. What caused this to happen? Could she have prevented it? Will Zach be able to have a ‘normal’ life?

In search of support, Tanya leaves her life in California working at a seal sanctuary and returns to her native England, where she finds herself stranded with Zach in the middle of a global pandemic. Caring for Zach’s complex needs means Tanya must choose to live within the mystery of the human condition, letting go of old expectations and fears about her son’s future.

Full of hard-won wisdom, Zig-Zag Boy examines what lies at the core of our relationships to each other, showing how life’s most testing experiences bring us closer to the truth of who we are.