Set against the backdrop of the social and economic turbulence of the 1970's and '80's, Fels paints an unforgettable portrait of a young couple striving to create meaningful, adventurous lives for their quickly expanding family while coping with a daughter's evolving and seemingly untreatable, mental illness. From her birth, her attempted suicide at age eight, a succession of mysterious illnesses, disappearances, estrangements, and, ultimately, her death at age twenty-four from astrocytoma, Fels offers an intimate and poignant examination of the life of a family: one that is at once unique and illustrative of American families in the final third of the twentieth century. Far from depressing, Fels blends the richness, humor, joy and sorrow of contemporary family life, ." . . the whole catastrophe " into this memoir.