From New York Times bestselling author of STILL ALICE Lisa Genova comes a powerful and transcendent new novel about a family struggling with the impact of Huntington’s disease, now available in trade paperback.

From New York Times bestselling author of STILL ALICE Lisa Genova comes a powerful and transcendent new novel about a family struggling with the impact of Huntington’s disease, now available in trade paperback.

Joe O’Brien is a 44-year-old Boston police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, a proud father of four children in their 20s, and a respected, seasoned law enforcement officer, Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to aging and the cumulative physical and psychological 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 family’s life forever: Huntington’s disease. 

Huntington’s is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment that affects the progression and no cure. And it is genetic. Each of Joe’s four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their father’s disease, and a simple blood test can reveal their genetic fate. While watching their potential future in their father’s escalating symptoms, each child struggles with the questions this test imposes on their young adult lives, including his youngest, 21-year-old Katie. Does she want to know? What if she’s gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?

As Joe’s symptoms worsen and he’s eventually stripped of his badge and more, Joe struggles to maintain his identity and sense of purpose. How can he find hope in a situation that feels hopeless? How can he find courage without any armor or weapons? What else might he be able to pass down to his children other than a fatal disease? Where is the honor in living and dying with Huntington’s? Each family member must reach deep inside, reexamine their values and the relationships that matter most as they learn to lead lives not defined by fear, but instead, by love.

Praised for writing that “explores the resilience of the human spirit” (The San Francisco Chronicle), Lisa Genova has once again established her talent with INSIDE THE O’BRIENS, a novel as powerful and unforgettable as the human insights at its core.

A headstrong young woman goes on a journey of self discovery and sexual awakening as she copes with her mother’s death and her father’s seeming indifference.

A headstrong young woman goes on a journey of self discovery and sexual awakening as she copes with her mother’s death and her father’s seeming indifference.

KATHERINE CARLYLE is Rupert Thomson’s breakthrough novel. Written in the beautifully spare, lucid and cinematic prose Thomson is known for, and powered by his natural gift for storytelling, it uses the modern techniques of IVF to throw new light on the myth of origins. It is a profound and moving novel about identity, the search for personal meaning, and how we are loved.

Unmoored by her mother’s death and feeling her father to be an increasingly distant figure, Katherine Carlyle abandons the set course of her life and starts out on a mysterious journey to the ends of the world. Instead of going to college, she disappears, telling no one where she has gone. What begins as an attempt to punish her father for his absence gradually becomes a testing ground of his love for her, a coming-to-terms with the death of her mother, and finally the mise-en-scène for a courageous leap to true empowerment.