Home Before Dark: A Family Portrait of Cancer and Healing

“Dare I say it, cancer was just what our family needed.” —Michael Treadway

An unflinchingly honest memoir of coping with cancer, told through the four voices of the Treadway family

In May 2005, David Treadway—a successful psychologist, writer, husband, and father of two adult sons—was diagnosed with stage 4, non-Hodgkins' lymphoma and given a 25% chance of survival. In the blink of an eye, his world shattered.

Faced with the news, his family all had to cope with their own, unique challenges: Kate, a physician practicing in the hospital where David was bring treated, struggled with her conflicting roles of wife, mother and doctor. David's twenty-something son Michael, unhappy with his life, moved home. His younger son, Sam—then a junior in college—simply went into denial. Relationships between all four of them experienced seismic shifts as they struggled to face David's possible death. Then, in 2006, David Treadway received a clean bill of health.

Here, in beautifully crafted alternating chapters, all four Treadways tell the story of their first year with cancer, avoiding platitudes and easy answers in favor of the raw honesty of a family coping with disease. Moving, heartbreaking, morbidly wry and ultimately uplifting, Home Before Dark captures the everyday struggles of living with and loving someone fighting for his life.