Center of Winter

Just read "Center of Winter" by Marya Hornbacher. Was a very good read. Read it all in one day - with 3 kids running wild. Couldn't put it down.

Here's a summary I stole from another site allreaders.com...

"The Schiller family is torn apart by mental illness. The autistic-like symptoms of their son, Esau, has brought Claire and Arnold's Schiller's marriage to the breaking point and Arnold kills himself with a single bullet to the head. In the aftermath, Claire, Esau, and the youngest Schiller child, Kate, must come to terms with Arnold's suicide and learn how to piece their lives back together. Claire's best friend, Donna, is also struggling with her husband's post-Vietnam, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and its resulting depression and alcoholism. Donna's son, Davey, helps Kate to cope with the death of her father while Donna provides Claire support. When Donna's husband also comes to a mental breaking point, the two families must learn to re-define what being a normal, small-town family is really all about."
Jennifer Martin-Romme, Resident Scholar

Recommend it highly.

Marya wrote another book called Wasted: a Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia - not a novel, but an autobiography. Want to read that for sure now. "Center of Winter" was her first novel.