Don and Mimi Galvin seemed like a model couple. He was a distinguished military officer, she was a cultured, devoted wife and mother, embodying the brilliant American century. Their world appeared perfect. However, a few years later, having had twelve children, that image began to fade.

Were they really so well-matched, so happy? Did they truly raise such disciplined children? What secrets lay in Don's past, in Mimi's family history?

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

Part family epic, part story of the most mysterious mental illness to this day, this true account, written with disarming honesty and understanding, is more than a gripping dual narrative with literary merits. Told from the perspective of three women—Mimi and her daughters Margaret and Mary—who endured situations beyond human endurance, it affirms the remarkable mental strength and courage of the so-called "weaker and more vulnerable sex." It is also an unabashed celebration of the real meaning of family: how much it offers us, but also the often unbearable cost it demands we pay.