[a] It's a ref load of beers
[b] Awesome name - imagine a GARDEN of HOES



This phrase is the family's way of telling each other to persevere because one family member killed herself by jumping out the window.
Incidentally, they made the book into a movie [just like "Garp"] and here's a pice of trivia from Wikipedia...
The rock band Queen was asked by producers to compose an entire soundtrack for the movie, but later changed their minds in favour of classical music. Freddie Mercury had already composed the song "Keep Passing The Open Windows" and so it ended up on their 1984 album The Works.

The night of the half-eaten moon
The piping hot decaf
felt cold
as I incoherently,
ramblingly,
nervously,
bad-scripted my words
to perfection
Her words fell
like a ton of bricks
as cigarette smoke
snaked up the air
threatening
to eclipse
the night sky
It was an evening bright
My officemate just lost his brand new Iphone 4 [bought last december] to bus thieves.

