Inside the O'Briens - by Lisa Genova (Paperback)

About the Book

"From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova comes a powerful new novel that does for Huntington's Disease what her debut Still Alice did for Alzheimer's. Joe O'Brien is a forty-four-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 family's lives forever: Huntington's Disease. Huntington's is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. 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 her potential future in her father's escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. 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 hope and a sense of purpose, while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life "at risk" or learn their fate. Praised for writing that "explores the resilience of the human spirit" (The San Francisco Chronicle), Lisa Genova has once again delivered a novel as powerful and unforgettable as the human insights at its core"--

Book Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova comes a "heartbreaking...very human novel" (Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves) that does for Huntington's disease what her debut novel Still Alice did for Alzheimer's.Joe O'Brien 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 family's lives forever: Huntington's disease. Huntington's is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure, and each of Joe's four children has a fifty percent chance of inheriting their father's disease. While watching her potential future in her father's escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. As Joe's symptoms worsen and he's 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 "at risk" or learn their fate. Praised for writing that "explores the resilience of the human spirit" (San Francisco Chronicle), Lisa Genova has once again delivered a novel as powerful and unforgettable as the human insights at its core.

Review Quotes

"This heartbreaking book tells the whole story of how a major illness affects a family. Genova's gift is to show that things do work out, in a sense. Her very human novel teaches us to keep living, to lean on each other and be there to be leaned on."

About the Author

Acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science, Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O'Briens, and Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart. Lisa graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. She is featured in the documentary films To Not Fade Away and Have You Heard About Greg. Her TED talks on Alzheimer's disease and memory have been viewed over eleven million times.