This is a story about three brothers who survived a nomadic and dysfunctional family life in St. Louis, Missouri, beginning in the early 1900s and continuing until their middle to late teenage years. The author illustrates the subtle erosion of a doomed marriage, while at the same time describes details of the routine growing up process of the boys in an undesirable, destructive family atmosphere. How the brothers navigated the maze of parental and family failures is the theme of this saga that takes many twists and turns as they try to make sense of their shattered lives.