Patt Blue's parents married and divorced each other three times during their thirty years together. Theirs is a tragic story of emotional abuse and submission. The charming and obsessive philanderer, J. W. questions his wife's every move. The desperate, all-suffering Louise, with no money of her own, no voice in family decisions, believes his lies and tries to please.

As an independent adult living in the era of feminism, Blue felt compelled to ask why and to understand. Why did her mother stay with him? Why does any woman stay with a man who psychologically torments her?

For twenty years as a photographer Blue has focused her camera on people in trouble. Now, in this book, she turns her attention to her own troubled family. Combining oral history told by her mother, photographs taken by her father, and her own memories and contemporary photographs, she has produced this unflinching book that seeks an answer.