Most people know Michael Chabon as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.”

And most people know his wife Ayelet Waldman as the controversial essayist who once ruffled feathers by claiming she was more in love with her husband than her kids.

But behind Chabon and Waldman’s high profile writing careers is a very real family, consisting of two parents, four kids, and – as Ayelet writes in her book, “Bad Mother ” - her own mental illness.

Last week, we were struck by the shocking story of a six-year-old girl in Oregon whose death has been labeled a suicide. We wondered: Is it really possible for a first-grader to suffer from suicidal tendencies? And to deliberately take her own life?