Just because of illness, a family's love for one of its own never waivers - it just becomes harder

"This is a moving novel about the intertwined lives of a brilliant young man who succumbs in adolescence to the ravages of schizophrenia and his devoted but bewildered younger sister, who suffers along with him from that time onward. It will be of interest to anyone who cares not merely about emotionally troubled individuals, but also about the others in their lives who are in their own way affected by the emotional problems that afflict them.

"Ms. Brodoff knows first-hand what she is writing about. This story has clearly emerged not only out of her creative imagination, but also out of her own personal experience.

"The reader is led on an odyssey that weaves back and forth between the tortured travails of Doren as he struggles with his illness and those of his sister Sarah, as she struggles with the impact of her brother's schizophrenia.

"As psychoanalysts, we cannot afford to give oursleves the luxury of ignoring the people in a patient's external world as we delve into his or her inner one. We can be grateful to authors like Brodoff for reminding us of what we need to do."

Heartfelt, ambitious; one family's way of coping with the trauma, shame and secrecy of mental illness. A genuinely moving novel. (Publishers Weekly review, October 18, 1999)