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Title: Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival : A Memoir by Jay Neugeboren ISBN: 0-8135-3296-5 Publisher: Rutgers University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Well worth reading.
Comment: As someone who has made a career of helping the mentally ill, This book broke my heart. Yet I believed the problems existed as stated.
As the parent of a child who, as a teen, developed the need for the safety of psychiatric hospitals, I cried for Jay and his family.
As someone who became clinically depressed after my child's serious suicide attempt, I easily understood the need for what sometimes seemed like unrealistic optimism.
This book offers something for anyone involved with people who are mentally ill. Read it. Keep it. Learn from it.
Rating: 3
Summary: Let us all kneel before the Great Jay
Comment: First, the good things: it must have taken courage to write the book, because of the possibility of betraying the privacy of the family. At the same time, the writing process must have been immensely satisfying. I imagine Jay finishing it, sitting back, smiling, and saying "If God takes me tomorrow, that's ok; the story has been told." In fact, Jay came to visit my college English class, and he told us that's exactly what he was thinking. I know how difficult it is to tell a true story about oneself in such remarkable detail, which is why the book earns three stars. But based on its execution, I'd rather only give it two. Here's why...
Is this book really about Robert? How many times does Jay congratulate himself on rising above a background that was out to get him? He went to Columbia, you know. And did he mention he's a writer? He throws that in so many times, you just KNOW he views being a writer as the noblest and most enviable profession in the world. The phrase "my accomplishments" crops up an awful lot, especially in a book supposedly dedicated to a mentally ill brother. Also, did Jay mention he's a writer?
And yes, the sentence structure was maddening (pun intended). A sentence can go on for an entire page, sometimes to such ridiculous lengths that I'd walk down the hall and read it aloud to my friends, just to show them with what I was dealing. I understand this problem a bit, though. I imagine Jay sitting at his desk with so much to say, afraid that if he doesn't put as much down as possible, as soon as it comes into his head, he'll lose it. So he erects a quick parenthetical fence and sends it down.
Basically, when I'd finished reading the book for my English class, I wished that Robert could come to visit instead of Jay. Much as Jay tries to overshadow him, Robert is the star of this book and a truly fascinating character. I realize that I only know about Robert through Jay's writing, so I respect Jay for that. But the book irritated me to no end. I guess I'm just not sensitive enough.
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant, moving, helpful to family members
Comment: If you're looking for a way to help a mentally ill relative, you must read this compelling book and its (equally compelling) successor, "Transforming Madness: New Lives for People Living with Mental Illness," also by Morrow. No, don't just read them. Buy them; tuck them away in a visible, dust-free spot; pull them out for inspiration when your relationship with your relative falls into a pothole. Big Neugie and Little Neugie will help pull the two of you out of it and go on with your lives together.
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Title: Transforming Madness: New Lives for People Living with Mental Illness by Jay Neugeboren ISBN: 0520228758 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Quiet Room : A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness by Lori Schiller, Amanda Bennett ISBN: 0446671339 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Open Heart: A Patient's Story of Life-Saving Medicine and Life-Giving Friendship by Jay Neugeboren ISBN: 0618112111 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Day the Voices Stopped: A Schizophrenic's Journey from Madness to Hope by Ken Steele, Claire Berman ISBN: 0465082270 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 07 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness by David A. Karp ISBN: 0195113861 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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