Eminently readable and worthy of attention.
A trip through the author’s mental illness told in a heartwarming, self-deprecating style.
It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a narrator who begins her tale of annual hospitalizations and a suicide attempt with this description of her bipolar disorder: “To me, the word implies savant-like capabilities. The label crazy is equivalent to the GED of mental disorders, whereas bipolar sounds more like holding a PhD in the field. ‘Congratulations, you are bipolar!’ ” It just gets better from there. From a tongue-in-cheek portrait of the psych ward’s command post, which reads, “It’s this glass-enclosed circular structure where the staff is stationed and on display for the patients to poke fun at. Needless to say, it’s a noisy location. There’s always some patient banging on the glass, declaring his seventy-two-hour notice of release. No matter how delusional patients may be, they always seem to be cognizant enough to know their legal rights”; to a gorgeous deep analysis of a fellow patient, “I pull back the curtain, allowing the setting sun to cast a soft amber light on her face. I hesitate for a moment as I study the weathered lines on her face. Why do we feel the need to erase our wrinkles? They define who we are and tell our stories. On second thought, maybe that’s why we feel so compelled.” Haynes jumps back and forth in time, mirroring her own manic thought processes, and devotes chapters to her son and husband so that they may have their say, all in the blink of an eye and with the humblest of hearts. Her eloquence is strikingly clear-headed for a self-proclaimed “crazy” person. Indeed, a chapter where she compares psychosis to divine revelation is simple and powerful, ending with, “Call me crazy, but I happen to believe in things unseen, unheard, unspoken, and intangible. I have no other choice.” Eat your heart out, James Frey.
Eminently readable and worthy of attention.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-1643-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An easy reading book of supportive encouragement to follow one’s dreams.
More than 40 career-changers tell their stories.
Introduced by Facebook executive and founder of Leanin.org Sheryl Sandberg, Lewis’ second cousin, the book offers exuberant advice for people who want to make a leap—daring or modest—from one career path to another, just as he did. At the age of 24, working for the investment firm Bain Capital, the author felt restless and dissatisfied. “I began to realize,” he writes, “that I wanted this life mostly because I thought I should,” but he heard “a very distinct if faint voice” urging him to try something “very different.” As he considered following his passion to become a professional squash player, Lewis sought advice from others who made similar jumps: a banker-turned-cyclist, for example, and a journalist-turned-politician. From them, and the others whose stories fill the book, he came up with the idea of the Jump Curve, a process of four key phases: listening to your inner voice, making a practical plan, believing in your own good luck, and rejecting regret. “You will come out stronger,” Lewis insists, even if your initial plan fails. “I keep coming back to the idea of agency,” said a man who made a move from corporate hospitality service to restaurant ownership: “the difference between life happening to you versus you making life happen.” Among the individuals profiled are a nurse who, at the age of 50, became a doctor; a football player–turned-writer; an investment professional who became coxswain of the U.S. Paralympic Rowing Team; a PR executive who found her calling as an Episcopal bishop; and a lawyer who sued the New York fire department to admit women firefighters—and then became the first woman hired. “Harassment, discrimination, death threats,” and physical abuse dogged her 25-year career. But, she says, “this was a jump worth fighting for,” a sentiment that Lewis underscores. Changing careers is risky, but “there is a risk to not taking a jump at all.”
An easy reading book of supportive encouragement to follow one’s dreams.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-12421-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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