This is a valuable, well-written memoir that skillfully interweaves the strands of Barber's young adult life with his affinity for working with the mentally ill. The author provides many insights--not only into obsessive compulsive thinking, but also into how difficult life can be when one does not fit into or desire the path that has been laid out by one's family. In the end, there really is no accounting for why one of three highly intelligent young men (Henry) turns to alcohol and drugs and commits suicide--even though unrecognized depression was certainly a factor--and a second one (Nick) says of himself "Nick lived a disjointed life, and often fancied himself a professional underachiever and dilettante . . . [who] successfully avoided most adult middle-class responsibilities, and by 35, he determined he would not have children of his own. 'The line stops here' he would declare, relieved and rueful at once" (190).Barber is convinced that his own experience of mental illness and of Henry's suicide has equipped him particularly well to work with communities such as the mentally ill homeless. "Sometimes, horribly, I think this: I'm glad Henry died, and I'm glad I have OCD. It has allowed me to do this work. I am a more troubled but a more effective person as a result of OCD" (165). Detailed and sympathetic portraits of the "clients" he works with--and the situations surrounding homelessness and the shelter system--are powerful segments of the memoir.It is striking that Charles Barber could not communicate to his family his obsessive thinking and the torment it was causing him, the true reasons for dropping out of college, his preoccupation and guilt about Henry's suicide, or even that he had found help through psychotherapy and medication [(he does note that his parents were involved in finding a local therapist for him but "the gory details of my diagnosis were always kept from them" (198)]. Not until he was deeply into the writing of this memoir was he able to reveal these truths to them. Indeed, Barber makes clear that the exploration of his past and of himself that were necessary to write this memoir, the need to make sense of experience through narrative, has been in and of itself revelatory and healing. And the book demonstrates that the boundary between mental health and mental illness is tenuous indeed.