Some families protect their own. Others destroy them.
Bobby Rossman grew up believing his family was perfect-successful, admired, and bound by love. But behind the polished fa ade lurked a darker truth: in a household ruled by narcissism, every child is assigned a role... and Bobby's was the scapegoat.
When his oldest brother Greg-his protector and the only source of safety in the home-falls mysteriously ill, the family's hidden machinery of cruelty begins to reveal itself. As Greg slowly loses his memory, his future, and eventually his life, Bobby watches the balance of power shift in devastating and irreversible ways.
With Greg's decline comes the rise of something far more sinister: a father transformed by grief into a weapon, siblings who close ranks against him, and a mother whose silence becomes its own form of violence. What begins as tragedy becomes a decades-long campaign of gaslighting, exclusion, and psychological warfare.
Based on real life stuff told as fiction, A Scapegoat's Tale is a haunting exploration of narcissistic family systems-and the child chosen to carry everyone else's sins.
Unflinching, raw, and ultimately illuminating, this memoir-styled novel exposes what happens when love becomes conditional, grief turns toxic, and the one person who kept you safe is taken away too soon.
For anyone who has ever been the family scapegoat, this book is a mirror, a warning, and a lifeline.