HURRY DOWN SUNSHINE by Michael Greenberg (Vintage, 2008)
“On July 5, 1996, my daughter was struck mad …” so opens the quick-reading, honest and compelling memoir written by the helpless father of a precocious fifteen-year-old girl who suffers her first manic episode one hot summer day in Greenwich Village. Her “crack-up” eats Sally alive and sends her to the emergency room and on to a psychiatric hospital where she is assigned the diagnosis of Bipolar 1. In the course of trying to understand his daughter’s madness, Greenberg cites James Joyce’s struggles with his own mentally ill daughter and moves through various stages of self-blame. In the midst of managing this crisis, Greenberg must also address his brother’s long-affliction with mental illness – “he’s 48 and chronically rattled” -- and can only wonder if his daughter’s condition is genetic. In the end, through counseling and a rainbow of strong medications, the family circles the wagons, and Greenberg, his wife, his ex-wife and their son, must all confront the uneasy issue of how to help Sally defeat this terrible mental disease without defeating herself. They must bravely forge towards hope that Sally can somehow be restored so that she can trust her mind again and resume a meaningful life (8.5/10).
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
RollnSmoke Reviews: THE HELP
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam, 2009)
What a debut novel! Set in the early-1960’s against a busy historical backdrop that includes an emerging conflict in Vietnam, the assassination of President Kennedy and MLK’s March on Washington, this novel takes place in a still racially-divided Jackson, Mississippi. A brave, independent and privileged white woman, Skeeter, dreams of becoming a writer and manages to win the support of various local black maids whom she persuades to tell about their “experiences waiting on white families” in The Deep South. The process of stealthily telling, collecting, writing and submitting these stories is told from three alternating points of view – from Skeeter’s, as well as from two of the domestics themselves, sweet and patient Aibileen and feisty, mouthy Minny. There is much at stake in sharing these truths but the reward of blurring the lines among what defines family vs. help vs. race is worth the risk, and these three heroes know that they “done something brave and good here.” This will be a hard act for Stockett to follow (9/10).
What a debut novel! Set in the early-1960’s against a busy historical backdrop that includes an emerging conflict in Vietnam, the assassination of President Kennedy and MLK’s March on Washington, this novel takes place in a still racially-divided Jackson, Mississippi. A brave, independent and privileged white woman, Skeeter, dreams of becoming a writer and manages to win the support of various local black maids whom she persuades to tell about their “experiences waiting on white families” in The Deep South. The process of stealthily telling, collecting, writing and submitting these stories is told from three alternating points of view – from Skeeter’s, as well as from two of the domestics themselves, sweet and patient Aibileen and feisty, mouthy Minny. There is much at stake in sharing these truths but the reward of blurring the lines among what defines family vs. help vs. race is worth the risk, and these three heroes know that they “done something brave and good here.” This will be a hard act for Stockett to follow (9/10).