I love a good memoir, and I saw The End Of Normal listed in someone’s Instagram post of their favorite memoirs, so I decided to pick it up. It’s by Stephanie Madoff Mack, the widow of Bernie Madoff’s son Mark, who killed himself two years after his father’s arrest for perpetrating the most damaging financial fraud scheme in history. In the book, she talks about how she and Mark met, marrying into the ultra-wealthy Madoff family, and how her father-in-law’s crime’s were exposed. But the focus of the book is on Mark and the toll his father’s actions took on him. Mark and his brother Andy always maintained their ignorance of the Ponzi scheme – in fact, they were the ones who turned him in – but their lives were completely destroyed by their father’s actions. Mark ended his life, leaving Stephanie alone with their two young children. The author doesn’t spend a ton of time ruminating on the other lives Bernie ruined – the thousands of people cheated out of their life’s savings – which is something she’s gotten criticism for. But this is a memoir about her life and her husband’s death, so I don’t fault her for that. And yes she sometimes comes across as whiny and self-centered, lashing out at people when she feels overlooked or unappreciated. But I did really enjoy reading The End Of Normal, for the intimate look into Stephanie’s life, the fall of Madoff’s house of cards and the destruction it left in its wake. And it’s hard to come away without sympathy for Mark, who found no way out of the situation, and the sad family he left behind.