The dynamics of the family of psychologist and philosopher William James and his brother, the novelist Henry James, are explored. The need for love, the hate and rage, the guilt, and the terror arising from their father's four-year confinement in bed as an adolescent due to an accident in which he lost his right leg, haunted him and his children and yet were the source of his and, indirectly, his sons' fierce determination to lead meaningful lives and to share with the world their extraordinary insights into the complicated functioning of the mind.