Monday, Nov. 03, 2008

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

Sally had always been odd. She dressed eccentrically. She stayed up till all hours reading Shakespeare and scribbling in notebooks. But on July 5, 1996, her fizzing mental chemistry boiled over and she experienced a psychotic break at the precocious age of 15. In this extraordinary memoir Greenberg — a freelance writer with no health insurance — tracks his daughter's journey through the mental health system, and through the measureless corridors of madness and medication, back to a semblance of normality. He also tells his own story, that of a man desperately clinging to his own mental balance while he helplessly watches his little girl lose hers.