Book Review = MADNESS: A BIPOLAR LIFE

MADNESS: A BIPOLAR LIFE by Marya Hornbacher.(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 2008)  Hardcover, 299 pages. ISBN: 9780618754458

 

the summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

 

An astonishing dispatch from inside the belly of bipolar disorder, reflecting major new insights

 

When Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have the piece of shattering knowledge that would finally make sense of the chaos of her life. At age twenty-four, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disorder.

 

In Madness, in her trademark wry and utterly self-revealing voice, Hornbacher tells her new story. Through scenes of astonishing visceral and emotional power, she takes us inside her own desperate attempts to counteract violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation. How Hornbacher fights her way up from a madness that all but destroys her, and what it is like to live in a difficult and sometimes beautiful life and marriage -- where bipolar always beckons -- is at the center of this brave and heart-stopping memoir.

 

Madness delivers the revelation that Hornbacher is not alone: millions of people in America today are struggling with a variety of disorders that may disguise their bipolar disease. And Hornbacher's fiercely self-aware portrait of her own bipolar as early as age four will powerfully change, too, the current debate on whether bipolar in children actually exists.

 

Ten years after Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, this storm of a memoir will revolutionize our understanding of bipolar disorder. 

 

My review from the Goodreads website . . . . .

 

     Unforgettable.

 

     The best description and explanation for bipolar disorder that you are likely to find - - all the more impressive for the insights from Hornbacher's own perspective. That she suffers from this mental disability and can still analyze her illness with such clarity and conviction is amazing. 

 

     She wrote this book over the course of several years while still struggling to overcome the symptoms. Captivating non-fiction that reads like fiction. 

 

     Hornbacher is incredibly brave to share her personal story, and holds nothing back regardless of how disturbing or embarrassing it might appear. Her honesty helps readers to obtain a clear idea of the wear and tear on the body and the mind that everyone with bipolar disorder has ago deal with. 

 

     She has a real gift for words and images. I'd love to see what she could do with a work of literary imagination. 

 

     There is a valuable glossary, reference sources, and contact information compiled by Hornbacher to close out the book.