In the summer of 1976, during their annual retreat on Cape Cod, the
McKotch family came apart. Now, twenty years after daughter Gwen was
diagnosed with Turner's syndrome--a rare genetic condition that keeps
her trapped forever in the body of a child--eminent scientist Frank
McKotch is divorced from his pedigreed wife, Paulette. Eldest son Billy,
a successful cardiologist, lives a life built on secrets and compromise.
His brother Scott awakened from a pot-addled adolescence to a
soul-killing job and a regrettable marriage. And Gwen--bright and
accomplished but hermetic and emotionally aloof--spurns all social
interaction until, well into her thirties, she falls in love for the
first time. With compassion and almost painful astuteness, The
Condition explores the power of family mythologies--the self-delusions,
denials, and inescapable truths that forever bind fathers and mothers
and siblings.