Book review: Inside The O’Briens

Following the success of the big-screen adaptation of Lisa Genova’s debut novel, Still Alice — an exploration of Alzheimer’s disease — the Harvard-educated neuroscientist’s fourth novel, Inside The O’Briens, cements her reputation. 

Lisa Genova

Simon & Schuster, €16.99; ebook, €21.76

Joe O’Brien is a formidable Boston policeman and proud paterfamilias of the O’Brien clan — wife, Rosie and his four grown-up children, JJ, Patrick, Meghan and Katie. He gets a shock diagnosis of Huntington’s Disease.

As there’s a 50% of the illness being inherited, Joe’s diagnosis also cruelly threatens his children. Each faces a choice as to whether to get tested for the disease.

It would be easy for this novel to slip into sentimentality and despair, but blessed by Genova’s touch it balances poignancy and emotion with a power and optimism.

Genova shines a light on one of the cruellest of illnesses. Yet a curtailed ending and a focus on multiple characters ensure that this becomes not so much a story about the devastation of illness, but about the strength of family.