Click here to buy The Four of Us (Amazon.com).
Harper Collins Ltd.
Elizabeth Swados shares her story of a family torn apart by dysfunction, culminating in dual suicide. The family's inability to cope with the symptoms of schizophrenia, "with severe paranoid tendencies" of Elizabeth's older and talented brother (Lincoln), serves as the cornerstone for this memoir. By devoting a separate chapter to each family member, Swados succeeds in conveying the effect of Lincoln's illness on individual family members and, ultimately, on the family as a whole. While this memoir may be fraught with tragedy, the Swados family is, in many respects, representative of all families.
