Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist, as well as a novelist, and it's with that rare combination of skills that she brings the drama of life with the disease alive on the page. That's certainly the case in the fictional O'Brien family, in a new novel by Lisa Genova. You may know Lisa Genova from her previous bestsellers including her debut novel 'Still Alice.' That was a story centered on early onset Alzheimer's, and since then her books have focused on other neurological disorders, including autism and Left Neglect. And so in families where Huntington's is present, the disease looms large. It's an inherited condition. If your parent has Huntington's, then you have a fifty-fifty chance of developing it too. Huntington's is a disease very much bound up in family ties. Would you want to know?Would you be able to live with the constant anxiety of not knowing? - Lisa Genova, novelist and neuroscientist ( From the publisher.There's a simple blood test that can tell you if you carry the gene. 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. Does she want to know? What if she’s gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?Īs 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. 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. 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.

Huntington’s is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. 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. 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. Joe O’Brien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts.

A powerful and transcendent new novel about a family struggling with the impact of Huntington’s disease.

Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova