Don and Mimi Galvin seemed like the perfect couple. He was a distinguished military man, she was cultured and devoted as a wife and mother, embodying the shining American century. The world saw them as flawless. But a few years later, after having twelve children, the image began to fade. Were they really so compatible, so happy? Did they truly raise such disciplined children? What was hidden in Don's past, in Mimi's family history?

Then came the violent upheaval: one by one, six sons of the Galvin family exhibited psychotic, violent behavior. The parents, terrified, ignored the reality. Until the tragedy, a double murder, forced them to see. Schizophrenia knocked and broke down the door of their idyllic home. Nothing would ever be the same.

Part family saga, part history of the most mysterious mental illness to this day, this true story, written with disarming honesty and understanding, is more than an enthralling dual narrative with literary virtues. 

Told from the perspective of three women - Mimi and her daughters Margaret and Merry - who endured situations beyond human endurance, it confirms the remarkable mental strength and generosity of the so-called "weaker and vulnerable gender." It is yet another unbiased hymn to the real meaning of family: how much it offers us, but also how unbearable a cost it often demands.