No Good Deed

No Good Deed is a taut nonfiction account of the personal and professional challenges the author faced as a school psychologist in taking on his own employer to seek help for his daughter. Author Frank L. Miller spins a gripping, heart-wrenching, and almost unbelievable account of his devotion as a psychologist concerned for his students as well as his own daughter. For anyone who has taken on the gross weight and sheer incompetence of an uncaring, unfeeling monster in the form of a school, university, agency, or corporation, No Good Deed will strike a strangely familiar chord. Miller kept detailed journals throughout these unfolding events, and though the author has changed the names of the principal characters and locations, everything in the book is completely true. At the beginning of the book, Miller details his youth growing up in an ordinary suburban Long Island, New York, community and how his experiences going to college during the turbulent 1960s forges his strong sense of advocacy for disabled children. He also explores the conflict in roles between 1960s "Flower Child" and father. The turmoil of Vietnam is touched upon. Regarding the latter, Miller expresses feeling like a prisoner, held between the four walls of academia, unable to impact upon the war, and its effects upon American society as an active participant facilitating change. The story continues through Miller's degrees, the genesis of his career, and then his marriage to a young woman with two children whose ex-husband died a violent death. Then the story moves into high gear: Miller faces the unique and almost daunting challenges that parenting a child with learning disabilities can present. These challenges took on a new dimension when Miller's step-daughter became involved with drugs at the age of fifteen. This is the rally point where No Good Deed Shifts into high gear, and Miller's long fight to help his daughter overcome her many troubles begins in earnest.