A New York Times bestseller ? A Library Journal and St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book of the Year ? A GoodReads Top Ten Fiction Book of the Year ? A People Magazine Great Read
From New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova comes a âheartbreakingâŠvery human novelâ (Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves) that does for Huntingtonâs disease what her debut novel Still Alice did for Alzheimerâs.
Joe OâBrien is a forty-three-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their twenties, and respected officer, Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts, and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job, but as these symptoms worsen, he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his familyâs lives forever: Huntingtonâs disease.
Huntingtonâs is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure, and each of Joeâs four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their fatherâs disease. While watching her potential future in her fatherâs escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. As Joeâs symptoms worsen and heâs eventually stripped of his badge and more, Joe struggles to maintain hope and a sense of purpose, while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life âat riskâ or learn their fate.
Praised for writing that âexplores the resilience of the human spiritâ (San Francisco Chronicle), Lisa Genova has once again delivered a novel as powerful and unforgettable as the human insights at its core.