One cold night in April, Natasha's father drove his car into the frigid water of New York Bay with her two-year-old half-sister in the backseat. She was the one to walk him past the column of hungry reporters demanding an explanation.
The headline in
The Daily News
read: Back from a Watery Grave. But Natasha's experiences growing up with her schizophrenic father in the gritty New York City of the 1970s are not so easily captured in a single headline. How could she possibly convey the power of her father's love in the face of this tragedy?
The Parts of Him I Kept
is an intimate account of coming of age in the face of a father's schizophrenic unraveling. In the tradition of Michael Greenberg's
Hurry Down Sunshine
and Robert Kolker's
Hidden Valley Road
, Williams explores the limits of our understanding of schizophrenia and chronicles the burden and privilege of caring for a mentally ill family member.