New York City, 1938. Ben Heald is a young prodigy; a champion swimmer who dreams of attending MIT . . . until his mother contracts a deadly and mysterious disease. Ben's father demands that he leave prep school to become his business partner, and the young man's life becomes unmoored. As he grapples with his mother's illness and his father's ultimatum, Ben's new reality brings him into orbit with all sorts of characters: a brilliant but tortured math teacher, an eccentric disease specialist, a profligate uncle in debt to the mafia, and a hopeful first love. Inspired by true events from author Gordon Adler's life, Here. I. Am. is a story of family, of hope, of heartbreak, and of the one question Ben Heald must answer for himself: will he be loyal to his family or to his dreams?