With emotions like fear, guilt and empathy eluding her, the author, trying to replace the nothingness with something, realizes, after connecting with an old flame, if she's capable of love, it must mean she isn't a monster and sets out to prove the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren't all monsters either.

"Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the '80s and '90s, Sarah McCammon was strictly taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather would go to hell unless she could reach him, or that her Muslim friend would need to be converted, and that she, too, would go to hell if she did not believe fervently enough, McCammon was a rule-follower and--most of the time--a true believer....

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reflects on her 42-year marriage with Dick Goodwin, one the shining stars of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier and the journey of going through the letters, diaries, documents and memorabilia he saved over the years.