Joe OBrien 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 when Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking uncharacteristic temper outbursts and strange involuntary movements he initially attributes these episodes to stress. Finally he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his familys lives forever: Huntingtons Disease. Huntingtons is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Each of Joes four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their fathers disease. While watching her potential future in her fathers escalating symptoms Joes twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie wrestles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. 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.