When Marya Hornbacher published her acclaimed first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have a piece of shattering knowledge: the underlying reason for her distress. At age twenty-four, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disease there is.
In her wry and utterly self-revealing style, Hornbacher tells her new story in Madness. 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. Her brave and heart-stopping memoir details her fight up from madness and describes what it is like to live in a difficult, sometimes beautiful life and marriage when the bipolar tendency always beckons.
One of the most dramatic clues to a new cycle of the highs and lows of bipolar disorder is the shift in the pace of the sufferer's internal dialogue, which soon leads to erratic behavior and actions. Narrator Tavia Gilbert uses this shift in pace to construct a framework for her narration of this memoir. It's a powerful technique for personalizing the experiences of Hornbacher, and the people whose lives are profoundly affected by her illness: rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, the worst form of the condition. During each cycle Gilbert's initial shifts in pace begin subtly and then intensify as the cycle progresses and ultimately ends, only to begin again. Through this technique, she effectively foreshadows changes, heightens the impact of Hornbacher's brutal honesty and self-revelation, and provides a glimpse of the dramatic mood shifts characteristic of this disorder. J.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly...
“Hornbacher will touch a nerve with readers struggling to cope with mental illness.”
About the Author
MARYA HORNBACHER is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated national bestseller Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, a book that remains an intensely read classic, and of the acclaimed novel The Center of Winter. An award-winning journalist, she lectures nationally on eating disorders and lives with her husband in Minneapolis.
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