Family. It is unavoidable. Everyone has it whether they like it or not. It is the family relationship that binds humans, be it good or bad.

Author Lucia Nevai’s collection of short stories, Normal, recounts family tales. But there are no storybook families in this book.

Instead, these families are like your neighbors, your friends, even you. Nevai will share her stories in person Friday at Big Table Books.

“Family life is really hard,” she said. “It’s harder than anything people do.”

Nevai’s short stories present characters stripped of their defenses, but not their dignity. “Monsieur Alle” is the story of Howie and Glenda, who must come to grips with child abuse.

“Close” is about an esteemed family therapist who tries to hold her own fractured family structure together.”Thanksgiving With Dorrie & Heck” bears witness to the bizarre finale of an annual family talent competition.

“I noticed one Thanksgiving everyone squaring off for competition,” Nevai said of her inspiration for “Dorrie and Heck.” “It’s a story that has its own strange history, something I’ve seen and something that’s made-up.”

The title story, “Normal,” went through a metamorphosis before arriving at its name.

“It emerged from the sense I had when parents and children are not in touch with each other because of a crisis,” she explained. “But there’s that desire for reconciliation.”

Iowa native Nevai said the topic of family life is one everyone can relate to, and often times, needs to be addressed.

“People never get over [family],” she said. “They carry these experiences with them. Family life makes a profound impression on you. It can be kind of constraining. Yet, what else to we have?”

Nevai asked herself that very question when she began writing. She started expressing herself through poetry as a student at Grinnell College.

Upon graduation, she set off to New York City. Marriage and motherhood soon moved her writing to the back burner though.

At age 30, however, Nevai discovered a resurgence in her writing. But short stories about family life were not her focus.

“It never occurred to me at first to write about family,” she said. “I thought I should write about kooky, small town characters, that’s what a short story is.”

Now she knows differently. Nevai said her collection of stories in Normal are “about people who can’t connect.”

Nevai will connect with readers April 25 at 7:30 p.m. when she discusses her work. The program is free and open to the public.