Relative Strangeris the riveting story of Mary Loudon's search for her dead sister, whom she had not seen for the last twelve years of her life. An explicit account of the devastation that schizophrenia can visit upon a person and their family, it will leave no reader unaffected. Asking more questions than it answers, Relative Strangeroffers a profound and uncompromising challenge to the ways in which we think about one another. Perhaps most compelling is the author's internal journey as she faces head-on her sister's illness and extraordinary alter ego. As Loudon dissects our definitions of sanity and identity, and examines our assumptions about familial responsibility, she challenges everything we believe about what it means to love, to lose, to die, to live and, above all, to belong. Relative Strangeris a beautifully written and deeply moving account of a woman s search for her sister. Provocative and moving, it is sure to be one of the most talked about and acclaimed memoirs of 2006.