Everything Is Fine: A Memoir

Summary

In this extraordinarily moving memoir about grief, mental illness, and the bonds of family, a writer delves into the tragedy of his mother’s violent death at the hands of his brother who struggled with schizophrenia. Perfect for fans of An Unquiet Mind and The Bright Hour.

Vince Granata remembers standing in front of his suburban home in Connecticut the day his mother and father returned from the hospital with his three new siblings in tow. He had just finished scrawling their names in orange chalk on the driveway: Christopher, Timothy, and Elizabeth.

Twenty-three years later, Vince was a thousand miles away when he received shocking news that would change his life—his younger brother, Tim, propelled by unchecked schizophrenia, had killed their mother in their childhood home. Not only devastated by the grief of losing his mother, Vince is consumed by the act itself, so incomprehensible that it overshadows every happy memory of life growing up in a seemingly idyllic middle-class family.

In an extraordinary feat of willpower, he decides to examine the disease that irrecoverably changed his family’s destiny and piece together his brother’s story. In this vibrant combination of personal memoir and journalism, Vince begins the painstaking process of recovering the image of his remarkable mother and salvaging the love for his brother as he faces trial for their mother’s murder.

Written in stark, precise, and beautiful prose, Everything Is Fine is a powerful and reaffirming portrait of loss and forgiveness.