Lori Schilling is the protagonist and main author of the book. We watch her go from a highly-intelligent and high-achieving Jewish daughter of an affluent family into a shell of herself due to schizophrenia. However, throughout the narrative, we are persistently reminded of Lori’s grit, as well as her intelligence. Although her illness threatens to engulf her several times, she ultimately emerges from a morass of extreme psychological illness, ineffective and arguably abusive medical treatment, cocktails of medications, and the defeat of the barriers that she puts up to her own recovery in order to achieve a semi-normal and functional life. Although she will never be who she was prior to the onset of her illness, her character and her narrative are ultimately victorious, and a beacon of hope.

Marvin Schilling is Lori’s father and a highly-intelligent, exacting man who pulled himself out of poverty, and, through education, smarts, and persistence, was able to provide his wife and family with a great degree of financial privilege and stability. Throughout the book, we see how his demands upon Lori contribute quietly and subtly to Lori’s condition. Her sense of pride and identity is largely derived from her parents’ perceptions of her, and Marvin follows the gendered standard of being the harsher and more demanding parent than Nancy.