Born into the legendary Carnegie family, in which serious mental illness has affected four generations of women, Millicent Monks' early childhood was lonely and difficult. After a career in music, she married and spent a year in Cambridge, where her husband was a Fiske scholar at the university. They have two children and mental illness in the family has continued to play a prominent and overwhelming part in her life. Her search for answers led her to Jungian analysis, meditation and the sutras, which have helped her find a delicate peace amid the devastating mental illness in the Carnegie family.