A young man is gripped by one fear: that he'll lose his mind. In his family, mental illness has shaped lives for generations, and psychiatric wards have become almost a rite of passage. His battle to avoid inheriting his grandmother's suicidal behavior, his mother's bipolar disorder, or his father's bouts with alcoholism and depression spurs him to flee Germany for New York, via Paris and Vienna, only to end up in just the kind of mental institution that so terrified him. But he works there as a psychologist rather than undergo treatment as a patient himself, and learns that a person is always more than a diagnosis. This picaresque novel, a potent blend of memoir and fiction, becomes a compassionate tale of reconciliation whereby the protagonist is forced to confront the question he has avoided all his life: What is normal?
