I don't have the slimmest idea of what a bipolar disorder can be. So, when I picked up "Hurry Down Sunshine", I wasn't anticipating too much. I even doubted whether I would be interested enough to finish reading this book.

I did finish the book.

Greenberg wrote this book with such a frank, sincere and delicate style that I became immediately engrossed after turning over the first page.

Sally's schizophrenia may haunt her for the rest of her life. But Hurry Down Sunshine shows the reader what a loving and caring family she enjoys. Courage and dedication are just the sunshine for anybody suffering from psychosis.

Good luck to Sally, and her great father, Greenberg.

This is an excellent narrative account of the author walking alongside his 15 year old daughter as she has her initial manic psychotic episode and proceeds through the mental health system. It lends perspective to those who may have heard of bipolar or manic-depressive illness but don't really know how it fleshes out. I imagine it would provide knowledge and comfort to families suddenly finding themselves helping a loved one under similar circumstances. Greenberg clearly and accurately portrays his experience how it played out chronologically, including interactions and relationships with other family members. Highly recommended!

This is an interesting story about Michael Greenberg's daughter, Sally, who one day out of the blue just goes crazy. It tells how he and his wife, Pat, his ex-wife and his family and friends dealt with it. Primarily it is about Sally and her story. I found it interesting how different people dealt with this. I got into this book right away and enjoyed it. I recommend it and think you will enjoy it too. Thanks for sharing, Mr. Greenberg.

"Hurry Down Sunshine", written by a father about his 15-year-old daughter's first bought with mania, is as much about his and his family's reactions to her struggle as it is about the condition itself. Told in a prosaic style, Michael Greenberg deals with the subject with utter honesty and absolute authenticity, sharing his confusion and pain as a father side-by-side with the anguish of someone whose darkest nightmare is coming true. Event though Greenberg is caring for his mentally ill brother, who is going through some difficulties of his own around this time, he was still completely unprepared for his daughter's illness.

Greenberg's writing is superb; although dealing with a poignant subject, the book never falls into self-pity, self-justification or sentimentality. The work leaves the reader with a great deal to think about as well as a hunger for more from Michael Greenberg.

I would recommend this to any reader interested in understanding what mental illness extracts from a caregiver or those close to the sufferer.

This was a great book! I highly recommend it! Have fun!
http://www.lwsfreedom.com/id/greentitan
Merry Christmas!!!

Michael Greenberg's memoir of the summer of 1996 describes the months that his daughter was dealing with manic psychosis and was diagnosed as "bipolar 1." It's much more a book about his reactions to her illness, as well as that of his brother and negotiating between his wife and his ex-wife than it is about Sally's actual illness, but it's the book that he's most qualified to write; he wasn't in her head, so he can't say exactly what she was feeling at the time. It's a unique experience that's well-worth the read, and it's a very quick book that's hard to put down.

I don't usually read memoirs, but this was an absolutely fascinating read. Within the narrative of his daughter's psychotic break, Greenberg delves into the mysteries of madness, pondering famous--and genious--historic figures who wavered between creative brilliance and complete psychosis.

This book gave me an intimate view of what it is like during a manic episode, and shows the thin line between sane and insane. Almost as stunning as the daughter's "crack up" is Greenberg's own struggle to cope with his daughter's madness, desperately trying to believe that is was drugs, which would wear off, instead of and organic disease in her brain.

Greenberg's prose flows smoothly. This book was difficult to put down. It will give me much food for thought for a long time.

As someone with Bipolar Disorder, I was hesitant to pick up this memoir. Some recent memoirs have tried to entertain with silly, cartoonish characters as fellow inpatients; and with those too too happy endings.
I couldn't put this book down BECAUSE it was fresh and true. Bipolar disorder isn't easy, all those plans made when you were a brilliant scholar at 18 don't always come true, but you can make a life for yourself.
Sally had a wonderful Therapist/Psyciatrist which is a blessing. You need to do the work, to learn those thoughts that will get you through each day. I, too, was unable to take Lithium which is the only inexpensive Bipolar drug out there, and the cost of prescriptions, even with a co-pay, can be stress inducing; and make medication compliance difficult. All of these things were covered in this wonderful book. But the ending was what I loved the most, you don't have to be the Prize winning Poet or the Supreme Court Justice that everyone thought you would be, But you CAN still have a quiet, delicate, life worth living.

I love how much research he did for the book. It is like an artistic, crazy history lesson. The mind is powerful and fascinating!

Wonderfully and poignantly written. I've already read and lent it out to friends to also enjoy it. I highly recommend it.

The topic was interesting & I purchased it because of Amazon's recommendations, but I would not do so again. The prose was awkward and boring.

----- Original Message -----
From: Janet Masterson
To: Janet Masterson
Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2008 10:04 AM
Subject: Re:


As a psychotherapist, I am grateful to the author and to his family for their courage in allowing this devastating life situation to be shared. It is superbly written: intimate,informed, brutal, honest,empathic, tender. The stunning memoir is not only a compelling read, it should be recommended reading for mental health professionals in training. Rachel Donadio wrote in The New York Times Book Review "What sets 'Hurry Down Sunshine' apart from the great horde of mediocre memoirs, with their sitcom emotions and too neatly resolved fights and reconciliations, is Greenberg's frank pessimism, dark humor and fundamental incapacity to make sense of his daughter's ordeal, let alone to derive an uplifting moral from it."
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/books/review/Donadio-t.html). The book was an Editors' Choice the following week. Oliver Sacks wrote in his extensive review, "A Summer of Madness," in The New York Review of Books (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21774), "Lucid, realistic, compassionate, illuminating, Hurry Down Sunshine may provide a sort of guide for those who have to negotiate the dark regions of the soul--a guide, too, for their families and friends, for all those who want to understand what their loved ones are going through." Hurry Down Sunshine is a generous, courageous, valuable contribution to the literary and clinical communities.

Hurry Down Sunshine is a great piece of writing. Michael Greenberg explores various themes and motifs in this book, such as parenthood, psychology, and medicine. One of the major struggles the narrator has is dealing with his psychologically challenged teenage daughter; however, despite Sally's health mishaps, Greenberg copes with placing his daughter an institution and eventually delivers his faith in Sally's recovery. The narrator also faces conflicts when trying to mend his friendship with his former wife in order to to save their daughter, Sally.
The book is fairly short and an easy read. I would recommend this book to anyone; however, there is some mature content; therefore, caution should be considered if one is younger than 18.
The best aspect of this book is the fact that Greenberg touches on universal parenting issues and fights wholeheartedly to understand and restore his daughter's sanity.
A++!

This is an engrossing book and thoroughly readable just as a story, although it also contains a lot of useful information about manic illness. It's a good antidote to the Papalos's book "The Bipolar Child". The Papalos's blur the definition of bipolar disorder to include a wide range of childhood and adolescent disturbances.
To some extent that's a matter of definitions. If a psychotic illness gets completely better we are liable to say, on the authority of Kraepelin and Bleuler, that it was mania, and if it does not get better we call it schizophrenia. I think they are genuinely separate illnesses with separate treatments but we are often doubtful, and when the patient is a teenager, and when drugs and alcohol are possible, the doubts increase.Greenberg's daughter seems to have had a classical case of mania.
Compared with many of the accounts of families dealing with mental illness the American health care system comes off pretty well, although the Greenbergs had no insurance

Michael Greenberg is an incredibly well educated and gifted writer. His style and choice of words paint an incredible picture and are very evocative. As entertainment and nuance for what the disorder does to families, I think this is an excellent book. The description of the daughter and some of her actions were dead on. Even better were the interactions of all the family surrounding her. One thought I had was that Mr. Greenberg did a fine job of getting the point across that almost every family has some type of unique personality to deal with. He also painted a fascinating picture of his daughter's outpatient psychiatrist. I really would like to meet that lady! The hero of the story however, was his girlfriend!! (I don't want to give too much story away... but if anyone reads this and disagrees, let me know!!)

People interested in finding out about this disorder to help family or friends will probably have already received a reading list from the professionals. This book, while I highly recommend it, should probably be read after some of the more clinical ones - it fills in the shadows, so to speak.

All the best,

Jay

I was gripped by this extraordinary book from the first page. With the totally unexpected, bolt-from-the-blue force of divine calamity striking one of the characters in a greek tragedy, the author's fifteen year old daughter was suddenly 'struck mad'in the summer of 1996. The nature of the daughter's madness itself is brilliantly conveyed, as is its impact on all those around her, who find themselves drawn unwillingly but with great courage and (in the father's case) illuminating curiosity, into the netherworld of institutional treatment, uncertain psychiatric diagnosis, hit-and-miss medication, that forms the realm of 'madness' in our society. Aside from being a compelling, heart-wrenching account of a family's world turned upside down, this is also, in my opinion, a beautifully written work of literature, full of superbly sketched scenes and characters. Greenberg who by the way also writes a very lively, funny, quirky regular column about New York life for the Times Literary Supplement (the main literary paper in the UK) is a wonderful writer, with a perfect mix of erudition, piercing insight and the kind of effortless light touch that makes every paragraph a joy to read. this is quite simply one of the best memoirs I've ever read.

I logged-on to purchase a different book, but when I saw the title it caught my eye. It's a good read for a short story of a summer that I imagine seemed like a life time to live through. The writer is insightful and informative in painting the picture of watching a loved one lose touch with reality and slowly disappear into the world of mental illness and a world of their own. This book was a pleasant surprise!

This book sounds great, but is very slow and is all about the father. He doesn't care about what his daughter is going through, just how it is affecting him. He even pushes his other books in the story. The last sentence is as powerful as the first, but that is the only good thing about the book. I was very disapointed and am so sad a father would be so self involved and talk only about himself and not his daughter who's going through hell.

I loved Hurry Down Sunshine and hope that my book group will want to read it as a group. The author, Michael Greenberg, though often confused about what to do about his daughter, and greatly pained by his daughter's pain, writes beautifully about her condition. It seems to me that he did all the right"moves" to help his daughter, meaning that when she needed to be hospitalized, he did not hesitate and try to make her condition less than it was. I think that everyone should read this book, to learn about bi-polar disease, to learn that people who have the disease can be helped, to learn that these people are not their disease but are people with all the complexities that we humans exhibit. Read the book, please. nancy Salen

In Hurry Down Sunshine, Michael Greenburg gives a moving account of his struggle to come to grips with his teenage daughter Sally's bipolar disorder and the accompanying stigma of the disease. It vividly captures a host of emotions that confronts the author, from the tumult of shock, disbelief, bewilderment, and denial upon discovering the seemingly abrupt onset of the disease to feelings of helplessness, devastation, and anguish over the prospect that Sally will be relegated to a life of social alienation, like his brother, who also suffers from the disease.

Greenburg is particularly pained by the futility of his attempts to reach out to his daughter whom he finds to have lost all semblance of her former self due to the extent with which psychosis had taken hold. In desperation, he reluctantly turns Sally over to a psychiatric hospital where she is put on a cocktail of psychiatric medications. Drawing from his pharmacological research, Greeburg provides a fascinating insight into the pharmacokinetics of each drug and its observable effects on Sally.

Greenburg also provides an intimate look at the family dynamics and the remarkable solidarity among family members throughout the ordeal.

Greenburg's memoir is richly detailed, riveting, masterfully written, and will no doubt evoke your empathy as it immerses you in the travails of author.

Why did Hurry Down Sunshine exceed my expectations? As a parent of a young-adult daughter who has lived within the grip of bipolar disorder's erratic rhythms since her adolescence, I looked forward to reading an account by "one of us", knowing it would feel familiar. We lurch with terror and ease into renewal in parallel motion with our loved one, always startled by the randomness, tussling with the world over dignity and with our offspring over safety. Yet, this memoir by journalist and author Michael Greenberg feels new. He jolts the reader with the naked events and feelings that are his family's alone to bear in this narrative of the summer of 1996 when their life came unglued. His 15-year-old daughter Sally is an "exceptional writer" with "lightning wit" whose symptoms "presented early", and whose illness happened to "break very suddenly into the open like a fever".

This book reads like a compelling piece of music that changes the listener by the end of its journey. There are no wasted notes; the secondary theme of Michael's ambivalent relationship with his dysfunctional brother Steve weaves compassion through the story and deepens its texture, and fragments about the mental illnesses of Robert Lowell and James Joyce's daughter are tantalizing. The characters - neighbors, family members, mental health workers and patients - enliven the narrative with color, as Michael chooses spare and sharp details (his initial feelings of ardor toward his future wife Pat when he caught the vegetarian dancer sneaking meat drippings into her mouth; his "hot angry shame" upon leaving Sally's first prescription to be filled; his attempt to interact with a potential client after he took a dose of Sally's pills to share her experience of feeling "packed in foam rubber").

What moved me most was the writer's generosity in exposing their story. At the onset of his daughter's illness, Michael spent "a fitful night...shuttling between dread for Sally's future and hope that somehow everything will be restored". Undoubtedly he has spent many such nights in the subsequent months and years. I empathize with the shuttling, and thank him for treating us to an epilogue that brings us up-to-date and affirms the optimism that coexists with the dread. I feel grateful and awed to have this window into Sally and her profound gift of originality, and I wish her and her family a future filled with "the buoyant sound of health". - Elizabeth Burnett

Humanizes and personalizes the agony of a parent trying to cope with a teenager in the throes of a manic psychosis. Nicely written, with many descriptive episodes, and a candid exploration of intimate family dynamics.

I recommend That's How the Light Gets In: Memoir of a Psychiatrist by Susan Rako, M.D. The title comes from a song by Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Rako's memoir is fascinating, freshly insightful, and wonderfully well-written. It is a great read. The writing just flows.

There is a good and a bad part to this story.
The good part is the author is very poetic.
The bad part is that he neglected his daughter (my opinion).
All psychiatric people I know became this way due to their upbringing, usually stemming from divorced or neglecting parents.
This book is sad, disturbing on the account mentioned above.

In Hurry Down Sunshine, Michael Greenberg does a great job of letting the reader view the effect mental illness can have on those close to it. The book isn't filled with him explaining what is going on inside his daughter's head but instead what is going on in his head and with his family. Critics have praised the book for its resistance of being sentimental, which is valid. However, if I had a complaint with it, it's that it seemed to lack emotion at times. This is a small complaint though, and I would recommend this book to anyone.

Your 15 year old daughter is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and must go to stay at a hospital, what will you do? If you are Michael Greenberg, you might write a helpful, open minded and informative book about it to help other families going through this crisis.
The book is set in 1996 and I was the same age as Sally (15) at the time so it was pretty cool reading it from that perspective, a bipolar girl was breaking down (from mania as opposed to depression) and being hospitalized when i was just going to high school and worrying about boyfriends and pimples. In many ways, Sally is very lucky, she had a doctor who balanced meds with therapy and a supportive father who loved her and believed in her.
A definite must read for anyone suffering from bipolar or has a bipolar person in their life. It not only educates but also gives hope. Much better than Elizabeth Wurtzel's egotistical whineifestos. My favorite parts were the hospital scenes and the drug effects because i have always been curious about those and can never seem to get a straight answer from anything i read or watch, it's always hollywood melodrama.

Thanks!

Michael Greenberg relives the horror of the summer his fifteen year old daughter was struck with madness, later diagnosed as Bi-Polar disease. "Hurry Down Sunshine" is the story of that summer and the impact on Sally and her loved one.

Greenberg writes with beautifully expressed prose conveying a depth of feeling that caused me as reader to empathize and identify with Greenberg through his fear, guilt, and in the hopelessness he experienced as he faced the burden of Sally's illness.

The story reads like a novel with conflict, resolution, and more conflict. The family, extended family, hospital staff, and others entwined in Michael's like are introduced and developed as they interact with one another, encourage Michael, or add more stress into his emotion packed battle with his own psyche.

Greenberg goes behind the scenes of the psychiatric ward to describe in detail Sally's treatment, her various medications, and the role of the medical staff in bringing Sally back into the world of reality.

This is an important and timely book. Incorporating new research results of the last several years have provided new hope for the treatment of Bi-Polar disease. Michael Greenberg has made a major contribution by providing insights for families suffering with their loved ones who are afflicted with this very difficult quandary

"Hurry Down Sunshine" is destined to be a model for others who have the courage to share their stories of Bi-Polar Disorder.

This is a memoir that connects us to the parts of ourselves we seem to understand the least and fear the most. It chronicles Michael Greenberg's experience with her daughter's flirtations with an unquenchable mania, a maddening psychosis that is punctuated by lucid whisperings making it so much more tangible for the reader.

Most of the literature I have read in recent years about characters with mental illness tend to be written from the point of view of the patient in question. Hurry Down Sunshine departs from this trend and brings to us the voice of those affected by the familial and social bonds being slackened by the throes of Sally's illness.

I was thoroughly pleased and impressed with this book - I think it's a remarkable reflection of the agony that can exist within a family dealing with someone suffering from a severe mental illness.

Hurry Down Sunshine is a beautiful, lyrical story that reads like a dance, a waltz... The words are lilting and honest and keep the pace quick and kept me thoroughly absorbed...

Greenberg captured the experience and emotions in such a way that one could feel both his parental experience as well as relate to his daughter even at her initial break...

A wonderful and beautiful read... The honesty and cadence are breathtaking.

Thank you for this.

As the mother of a daughter who is the same age as Sally Greenberg, but who wasn't diagnosed as bipolar until three years after Sally, I could certainly relate to this book. My daughter's first bipolar psychosis was triggered when we were thousands of miles from home, in London, England of all places. It was a terrifying experience for us all. Thankfully she was eventually properly diagnosed (after having to cut her vacation short) and is a productive, lovely 27-year-old today. I could certainl relate to Greenberg's experiences with his daughter. And the love he has for her. This is recommended not only for parents of bipolar children, who should certainly read it, but for those who enjoy mesmerizing, well-written memoirs. Even though this brought back some of the darkest days of my life, I am very thankful to have read it.

"Hurry Down Sunshine" is a carefully wrought medical Affliction Drama perfect for today. The formula, designed to appeal to the Oprah audience, can be described: 1) the affliction must be a mystery for medical science, this so that any interpretation or diagnosis, especially New Age nonsense, can be equally credited; 2) the affliction must be dire and sufficiently personal so that any impugning of the dramatist's motives seems heartless if not horribly insensitive; 3) female characters in any and all scenes must be estimable in some or other way that lingers after the scene, their superiority dramatized usually by favorable comparison to male characters who are wanting if not downright less than admirable, including here the confessor of this memoir (who is a saint of patience and viscerally quick to self-criticism as the Hapless Nice Guy kicked around verbally almost everywhere in the narrative by ascendent females); 4) ergo male characters do not meet the mark in any and all scenes in some or other way, including "nuanced" and "subtle" ways skilled writers know how to manage, and again usually by some or other unfavorable comparison to superior female characters (usually rendered in goddess-like imagery not blatant but intended for the subliminal imprint); 5) there being but a thin drama in this skillful addition to the thriving Affliction Lit of these days since at the very beginning of "Hurry Down Sunshine" we learn there can be no medical explanation, no authentic resolution, we are given only the most vague statements of the Why of the book--what we can expect to learn from it, that is, the News it promises us-- e.g., maybe the book will serve as a "guidepost" for others (that's always a reliable one) or perhaps it will allow readers to experience the human condition (also very servicable as promo gibberish for calculated pseudo literature) or perhaps it takes us back and forth between, as the front dust jacket flap says, the "mundane" and the (if I recall accurately) "transcendent", whatever that might mean.

We get the literature we deserve.

The most defenseless moment a parent will ever experience is when they are absolutely helpless in the protection or healing of their child. How many times has a parent caressed the feverish brow of their child and attempted to rock their child to sleep. From the placing of a band aid on a knee... to removing a splinter... a parent has the magical gift of comfort... to their beloved flesh and blood. Even in the more serious case of rushing your child to the emergency room to have a bleeding wound stitched up... you are involved in the security and well being of your bundle of heavenly love (even if he is six-foot-three) that you as a parent have been blessed with.

But how deep would the bottomless abyss of your very soul fall to... if your child's entire persona... including their temperament... and mental acuity... was snatched away... like a thief in the night... in a blink of an eye? What type of inner fortitude would it take for the parent to not only have the strength to climb out of the abyss... but what kind of faith would be necessary to see the light at the end of the pitch black tunnel?

On July 5, 1996 author Michael Greenberg's fifteen-year-old daughter Sally "was struck mad". There was now a chasm between Sally and the rest of the world. How bad was this sudden psychotic crack in the mental health of Michael's teenage daughter? How bad do the "new" mental mannerisms have to be for a Father to continually hope that his daughter has a drug problem? The author writes powerfully in the style of a street poet that is writing words with the pain of his guts. In describing his daughter's outbursts he says: "AND SHE IS TALKING, OR RATHER PUSHING WORDS FROM HER MOUTH THE WAY A SHOPKEEPER PUSHES DUST OUT THE DOOR OF HER SHOP WITH A BROOM." Imagine the anguish for a Father to describe his daughter: "SHE THINKS SHE'S ELOQUENT, WHEN SHE CAN'T PUT TOGETHER A COHERENT SENTENCE." Michael leads the reader on a trip that starts off at the hospital emergency room... and that leads to Sally being admitted to a government mental institution... complete with bullet proof windows and a "quiet-room" with padded walls and a mattress on the floor. "THEY USHER SALLY INTO A TINY SHOEBOX OF A ROOM. A GATED WINDOW, DISPROPORTIONATELY LARGE, LOOMS OVER A NARROW BED A SURREALIST PAINTING IN WHICH THE DREAM IS ENORMOUS, THE DREAMER INCONSEQUENTIALLY SMALL."

The reader will be introduced to a cast of characters ranging from bizarre to pitiful to cruel. And that includes both patients and mental health staff. You will also get a detailed education in the purpose and side effects of drugs used in the treatment of mental disease. The author... in a desperate attempt to understand his daughters plight... actually takes her powerful medicine (un-prescribed and without permission) to try to comprehend her mental prison cell... that is locked with a key of drugs and madness.

The telling of this story from the Father's point of view is so visceral that you feel yourself acting and reacting as if each pulse of the story is beating in your veins. Sally's psychosis appears as if the GPS unit in her brain made a wrong turn and got stuck in a dark alley dead end.

When you finish this book, your emotions will have definitely been touched. And just when you lean back to contemplate what you have been through... there is a short powerful postscript.

Here's a father's beautifully written account of his teenage daughter's first "bipolar" episode, as well has his ongoing role as his (literal) brother's keeper. Everyone in Greenberg's orbit--his son, his ex-wife and her husband, his mother, his other brothers--all become involved in his daughter Sally's psychotic episode, but he shoulder's the primary responsibility and feels the keenest estrangement from her. His brother Steve also impacts his life deeply, unable to deal with the reality of the social world. Greenberg hits exactly the right tone throughout, compassionate, yet burdened, forgiving, yet sometimes angry, frustrated, and occasionally even violent. The book pulls no punches and takes us inside the world of the mentally ill and shows how a disjointed mind topples the minds around it like dominos. Highly recommended.

I was writing a little article about upcoming book signings for a regional magazine's calendar and came upon Michael Greenberg's book. I researched it a little and was immediately drawn to his story--so much that I read the first chapter that was provided by Amazon and waited 2 days to purchase the book on the date of its release. Finished it tonight.
I have always had a fascination with someone who didn't see the world the way that most people do. Like they had something brilliant to share. I think Greenberg's account of Sally's meltdown and the thoughts that went through his head were depicted in such a real way. The poetry in his words and the way that he describes things are moving, real, and honest. I don't think a lot of writers are able to do that but Greenberg has succeeded. It provoked me to ask the question, what makes us that much different from people with mania? Ultimately, we all have our perception of what's real and our vision of the world. Sometimes we even have this...exaggerated belief in our intelligence and want to share these epiphanies with the world...people turn to certain professions or things to share what they believe is their truth through art, writing, etc. The thing that this book has taught me is that, people with mania or bipolar disorder just can't suppress their epiphanies enough to be functional in society. They are overwhelmed and feel the need to express it, shout it to the world. This is not in a clinical sense because im obviously not a psychiatrist, but from a more philosophical sense. You come out of reading this book with an appreciation for life and your own epiphany that as much as we are different from the "crazies," there is this common thread that binds us all together: the need to share our thoughts and to be understood to escape this sense of solitude that separates all of us.

It is the summer of 1996, and tragedy strikes the Greenberg family when daughter Sally begins her tragic descent into mental illness. Michael Greenberg has so much to deal with, so many demands upon his time. This is the story of Michael Greenberg, of his daughter's illness, of what he saw, and (especially) what he felt.

This is truly an intense book, filled with pathos. Having spent some time in psychiatric units with a troubled daughter, I found the story really speaking to me - the new light that is shed on your relationships, the way the world seems to take on entirely different shades than you ever imagined. This is a great story that really touches the human soul, and I highly recommend it.

(Review of Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg)

I am very hopefully awaiting the arrival of the book. I have a daughter in law who is severely bi-polar and am still hopeful we can find some kind of help for her. Her family, for the most part, has tried to isnore and deny that she has a severe problem. Having said that, we found out they put her in the state mental hospital when she was eleven. Her Mother ignores the name calling and says she is just mad at something. Her brother simply tries to avoid her at all costs. The poor girl cannot be left alone with her children; much too dangerous. Unfortunately, ALL mental health facilities in the state they are in were shut down in 2001/2002. The patients were given a years Rx for what ever drug they were on and sent on their way. She has gone down hill dramatically and her episodes have escalated into screaming violence from which her children must be protected. She has had episodes where she broke vertibra in her husbands back; where she threw a coke can and cut his face...too many horrible things to mention. Still,
he feels that God means for him to take care of her, since there is no alternative. He cannot leave her to go to work, he cannot trust her to be there when the children get off the bus. She has been on Geodon (sp?) with disasterous results. She now takes some kind of drugs that make her slur her words, close her eyes and then scream about nonsense. I am hopeful this book will shed some light on the horrible disease for the family.

When I originially ordered this novel I thought it was a work of fiction; that is, until I saw the word memoir on the cover. Since I'm so used to reading fiction, I had to continually remind myself that the people and the events in this story are real.

I learned much about psychosis reading this. I was under the impression that most people who are afflicted with a severe mental illness never showed any signs of recovery and were confined to a rubber room for life. But characters in the novel are constantly checked into and out of the psych ward, many returning for a second or third time. It seems that although many never reach the point where their psychosis is gone forever, they do reach lengthy periods of sanity and are allowed back into the world.

The back of the book describes the landlord as an unforgettable character, but I'd have to disagree. He's mentioned maybe three times in all. The most unforgettable character in the book is clearly the author's brother Steve. Steve is a very quiet and polite (although still extremely disturbed) fellow for decades, and suddenly becomes a foul-mouthed and vocally angry soul. In what I found to be the most amusing part of the story, he makes friends with some dope smoking bums off the street and invites them into his apartment. The author gives "impotent" threats to the fattest of the three friends ordering them to leave Steve alone, and the man (called Junior) simply takes a draught of alcohol in response, saying, "You don't need to worry. Because Junior's watching out for him now." I found myself laughing at the description of the scene, and again, had to remind myself that this event really happened and is not something to be laughed at.

In the middle of this story, I realized that I was born in the same year as the main character Sally. She should be somewhere around age 26 right now. This really puts things in perspective for me. I confess, sometimes I've considered myself so avant-garde that I'd be interested in dating someone with severe psychosis like Sally, but then again, I wouldn't want her to scratch my face up before she goes out into the street attempting to stop cars by dashing in front of them. That would be a lot to handle. She seems so sweet when her psychosis is in remission though. It's a shame, especially since I do kind of agree with her that we're all born geniuses and gradually lose our sense of genius as we get older. When I think about folks like J.M. Barrie, Walt Disney, Lewis Carroll, and Jesus, I'm convinced that young childern have some kind of magic inside their brains that most adults do not. If it wasn't for her overly-violent zeal for her genius of newborns idea, Sally probably wouldn't have ended up in a ward.

Even in her present state, I think Sally still has the potential to become a great artist or writer. Hopefully Mr. Greenberg can make enough money off this novel to give Sally the chance to publish her own ideas and promote her genius of children idea in a more suitable manner than she has done in the past. I wish her luck. And I wish that Steve fellow luck too, but I don't see him as the writing type.