Family History by Dani Shapiro

What happens to a family, especially the mother, when the dreams for a child are shattered? In Family History, Rachel Jensen's world is falling apart. She is separated from her husband, Ned, a teacher and painter. Her teenage daughter, Kate, is at a school for troubled teens in New Hampshire. In addition, her two-year-old son, Josh, seems developmentally behind other children his age, maybe because of an accident Kate had with him when he was younger. All the family's problems seem to have started a few years ago when Kate began acting strangely and Rachel was pregnant with Josh. Through flashbacks, the reader discovers what's happened with the Jensen family to cause a once-happy family to flounder. Shapiro writes a compelling story similar to Jodi Picoult and Ayelet Waldman's two novels.