At sixteen I finally rebel after spending years watching my warm, Jewish home in Denver disintegrate. It’s 1968 and bipolar disorder has been ravaging my mother and has sent my father, a powerful attorney, into a spiteful tailspin. To escape I make one perilous choice after another, and these decisions carry me, unprepared and alone, into a world that is sometimes cruel and often dangerous. After returning to Denver I work to understand my parents and my past, and am surprised to discover my own strengths.
Throughout my memoir, I reflect upon how risk-taking has shaped my relationships with and my attitudes toward men and sex, my daughter, Judaism, and my own eventual diagnosis of major depressive disorder.