All Good Things

Erin Paterson’s memoir, All Good Things, is the work of a true writer with true charm and triumphant courage. It is about being faced with questions that seem impossible to answer, choices that seem impossible to make. If you knew that a family member carried the gene for an ultimately fatal disease, and that, therefore, there was a 50 percent chance that you carried it too, would you get tested to find out whether you did? What would you do if the result of the test was yes, you had this dormant (for now) gene that would definitely awaken in you someday and shorten the life of your mind and body? How would you go on living? Would you, in spite of what others might say, try to have a child who itself would have a 50 percent chance of carrying the fatal gene? These are matters that not even King Solomon himself could resolve. In All Good Things, Erin Paterson tells the extraordinary story of how she, and her husband, answered these questions and many others. The book is powerful, sweet, moving, tender, and yes, I’ll say it again, courageous. If you read it, you will never forget it.

Wayne Johnston, author of The Mystery of Right and Wrong and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

Erin tested gene positive for Huntington’s Disease (HD) in 2006. Shortly after she started suffering from depression, then received more crushing news, she was infertile.  Despite those diagnoses she was determined to have a family and live a joyful life.

She is a proud mom who loves to run and bike in her spare time. She has completed 16 half marathons and 1 full marathon.