Inside the O'Briens

April 13, 2015
Neuroscientist and novelist Genova (Still Alice) creates another poignant portrayal of those affected by neurological disorders. Joe OâBrien, a third-generation Irish American and longtime Boston cop, begins experiencing violent rages, sudden falls, and difficulties keeping still. Colleagues think heâs drinking, but Joe denies any problem until his wife, Rosie, insists he see a doctor. Tests reveal Huntingtonâs Disease, an incurable genetic disorder causing slow degeneration and death. Even worse, Joe and Rosieâs four children each have a 50-50 chance of having Huntingtonâs themselves. Will ballet dancer Megan, rebellious Patrick, or married firefighter JJ have, and pass along, the gene? How can the youngest sibling, 21-year-old Katie, balance her familyâs needsâand her own chance of illnessâwith her fledgling attempts to craft an adult life beyond the shelter of the OâBriensâ close circle? Does the news require Joe to reinterpret his own motherâs troubled life and death? Narrated through Joe and Katieâs contrasting viewpoints, the novel effectively dramatizes the challenge of an illness that affects several generations simultaneously and demands searing emotional, logistical, and financial choices. Genovaâs book will move readers as well as demystify a condition sometimes called âthe cruelest disease known to man.â

February 15, 2015
Best-selling neuroscientist-turned-novelist Genova, author of several popular stories based on the experience of suffering debilitating diseases-notably Still Alice (2009), about a woman with early-onset Alzheimer's-now tackles the impact of Huntington's disease on one blue-collar Boston family.Patrol officer Joe O'Brien is third-generation Irish in Charlestown. A tough cop with a soft interior, a loving wife and four adult children, Joe "doesn't do doctors" but is going to have to learn, because there's no dodging the diagnosis heading his way-one that Genova outlines on her opening page: Huntington's is "an inherited neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive loss of voluntary motor control...proceeding inexorably to death in ten to twenty years." Not only is there no cure, but there's a 50 percent chance that Joe's children will carry the gene, too. Genova's straightforward storytelling lays out this unhappy scenario with maximum empathy as she switches between the perspectives of Joe and daughter Katie, a 21-year-old yoga instructor. While the parents worry and the siblings bicker and confront-or don't-their fears and options, Genova conveys the facts of HD through encounters with doctors and genetic counselors, continuing the education as Joe's symptoms intensify and the disease, or its possibility, undermines and redefines jobs, finances and relationships. Minor events do occur, but the stiflingly circular topic of the disease drives everything-Joe's mood swings and suicidal thoughts, his wife's wavering faith and Katie's on-and-off wish to know her own fate. Genova's intention once again is acceptance, and the wrung-out reader bids farewell to the family at a relatively calm and united moment. This journey to a place of mindfulness, while inevitably affecting, often reads like fictionalized campaign literature for a worthy cause.

Starred review from March 15, 2015

Genova (Still Alice; Love Anthony) has in her fourth novel elegantly constructed a tale of a Boston police officer who learns that he has Huntington's disease. In his early 40s, Joe O'Brien starts experiencing sudden, violent changes in his temper and muscle movements and is eventually diagnosed with the genetic disease that gets progressively worse and as yet has no cure. Joe's four children each have a 50 percent chance of inheriting the illness, and his youngest daughter, Katie, who is just starting her life as a yoga teacher and with the man she loves, grapples with whether to test for the gene. Genova takes us on Joe's hellish personal journey, alternating between his point of view and Katie's. VERDICT This is a gut-wrenching and memorable read, most similar to Genova's Still Alice in its detailed portrayal of the disintegration and rebuilding of a family in the face of a horrible illness. [See Editors' Spring Picks, LJ 2/15/15, p. 31.]--Mariel Pachucki, Maple Valley, WA

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