Critical Praise

"Lyden's lucid, powerful prose makes her psychic drama real and vivid. "

——Newsday

"The story will resonate with anyone who has struggled with a mentally ill family member. "

——USA Today

Times "The great strength in Lyden's memoir lies not only in the story it tells of madness, imagination and the tough bonds among three generations of women, but also in the poetic power and virtuosity of the language with which the story is told... A beautiful family testament. "

——Chicago Tribune

"One of the most indelible portraits of a mother-daughter relationship to come along in years, a book that belongs on the shelf of classic memoirs, alongside The Liars' Club by Mary Karr and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt... A book that stands, remarkably, as both a reporter's unsentimental act of recollection and a love letter to an impossible and captivating woman. "

——Michiko Kakutani, The New York