In the subconscious fantasies that make conception look so alluring, it is often ourselves that we would like… — Andrew Solomon

I started this book to forgive my parents and ended it by becoming a parent. Understanding backward liberated me to live forward.

Insofar as I have written a self-help book, it is a how-to manual for receptivity: a description of how to tolerate what cannot be cured, and an argument that cures are not always appropriate even when they are feasible.

I want more than anything for my children to be happy, and I love them because they are sad, and the erratic project of kneading that sadness into joy is the engine of my life as a father, as a son, as a friend—and as a writer.