Intersections is a unique family story with a stunning twist that explores nature, nurture, environment, tragedy, redemption, and perseverance. Gene McLeod is born in 1963 and raised in a lower socio-economic neighborhood in the small city of Huntington, West Virginia. His father is a barely literate machinist for a glass factory and his mother a bank teller. He adores his family but is frustrated by the dysfunctional environment that surrounds him: depression, alcohol and drug abuse, shopping addictions, and carelessness. Internally driven and determined to rise above the environment he lives in, Gene puts himself on a personal academic mission to create a better life for himself. But his efforts put him at odds with family norms. His parents and brother love and appreciate him. But they consider his seriousness, sense of urgency, and academic grit mysterious and strange. Gene's mission makes them uncomfortable. Gene goes on to have a surprisingly successful adult life. But Gene's good fortune was not only a product of his grit and determination. It was also the product of something no one knew. No one.