My first novel insisted on emerging while I was raising my children and working as a physician in Silicon Valley. The story draws on my experiences as clinical director of the Huntington's disease program at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1980's, when a genetic test first was developed to predict whether someone at risk to inherit Huntington's would develop the disease. Huntington's is a ghastly and fatal illness with onset in the prime of life. I worked with patients and their families faced with wrenching choices about whether they wanted to know what fate held in store for them in midlife. This affected me deeply.
Years later, I confronted similar (though less dramatic) dilemmas personally. My father developed Alzheimer's disease, and was found to carry a gene that doubles one's risk of getting Alzheimer's. My siblings and I had to choose whether we wanted to be tested for this gene when that wouldn't lead to prevention of the tragic illness. These themes in my life, as well as losing my mother in my childhood, inform my novel and infuse it with credibility and compassion.
My novel will be of interest to anyone who has wondered whether they want to know their future.