“What happened to Danny”—which was how Julie Fingersh’s family often referred to her little brother’s life story—had always been sealed in sacred privacy, unfolding year after year under the noses of everyone around them. Their odyssey was easily concealed; things like this did not happen to families like theirs. Then, decades later, a different something happened. But this time Julie wasn’t a young sister trying to help her beloved brother. She was a mid-life parent on the verge of an empty nest, and this time it was her own child’s life suddenly careening off track.

Sparkling with warmth, insight, and lyrical prose, Stay explores the joyous and painful complexity of relationships, parenting, and mid-life. It also offers readers a rare, deeply affecting look behind the often-hidden veil of those navigating serious personal struggle, be it medical or mental. Above all, Stay provides sustenance for anyone on a search for how to love others fiercely while rising to the possibility of our own lives.