When Scheier's mother Judith was in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life, she was a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. At eighteen Scheier learned that her mother had been married for most of Scheier's life to a man she had never heard of, and the man she thought was her father was entirely fictional. Here Scheier tells a story of decades of learning to survive with a complicated parent, as feared as she is loved, and as self-destructive as she is adoring. -- Adapted from book jacket.