Eleanor Hamilton is happily married and is mother to a charming four-year-old girl, Mabel. Her husband, Edward, is a leading light in the burgeoning eugenics movement, which is designing the very ideas that will soon be embraced by Adolf Hitler. But when Mabel develops debilitating epileptic seizures, their world fractures. Their daughter's shameful illness must be kept hidden or Edward's life's work and the family's honor will be in jeopardy. When Eleanor discovers Edward has been keeping secrets, she calls into question everything she believed about genetic inferiority, and her previously unshakable faith in her husband disintegrates. Alarmed, distressed, and no longer able to bear the family's burden, Eleanor takes matters into her own hands.-- Back cover.