Fresh off an award season filled with wins for the Hollywood film adaptation of her book Still Alice, New York Times best-selling author Lisa Genova is releasing her next book. Inside the O’Briens (Gallery Books), slated for release early this month, is sure to be her next big hit.

Genova’s story focuses on Boston cop Joe O’Brien, a 44-year-old Boston “townie” who lives with his wife and their four children in Charlestown. An devout Catholic, Irish family, the O’Briens live a quiet, content life until Joe is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Huntington’s, a relatively unfamiliar disease to those who don’t have it, affects about 37,000 people in the United States ~ the capacity of Fenway Park.

Just as she did for Alzheimer’s in Still Alice, Genova shines a light on the devastation of an incurable disease. In Inside the O’Briens, she chronicles the heartbreaking consequences and repercussions of Huntington’s and how it can tear at the seams of families and change the futures of all involved. Not only does Joe have to deal with losing his badge and his job when his disease forces him into an early retirement, but he also must cope with losing his identity. He’s always been a Boston cop, serving his city for 25 years, a career that has suddenly been taken away from him. Making matters worse for Joe is the fact that he may have passed down this destructive gene to his four children, all of whom have a 50-50 chance of having inherited it. He also struggles with deep guilt over how his condition will affect his wife, Rosie. She will have to care for him as he loses his abilities to move and speak, leaving her knee-deep in medical bills when he dies in 10 years, right about the time he was supposed to be retiring, collecting a full pension and enjoying life with her.

As times get tougher and his symptoms worsen, Joe has to learn how to live with his disease and his symptoms in order to set an example for his children when it comes to facing a life with Huntington’s. Meanwhile, the O’Brien children struggle with whether to get the blood test to determine if they have inherited their father’s fate. Joe and Rosie’s youngest, Katie, has the hardest time deciding if she can live a life of uncertainty, questioning every involuntary movement she makes (a symptom of Huntington’s called chorea), and if she can deal with the guilt if she tests negative and her siblings test positive.

Inside the O’Briens is a story of resilience, hope and love. The family must hold on to its faith ~ and each other ~ in order to get through Huntington’s together. Genova has written a tearjerker, painting an emotionally honest picture of the reality of fatal diseases: There can never be a happy ending because there is no cure. But there can be a happy life in the here and now, before the characters meet their ultimate fates.

By Kimberly Dunbar

Inside the O’Briens is available April 7 in bookstores and at online retailers.