Fortunately for everyone who has been affected by bipolar disorder, Griffiths—and her notebooks—survived the journey.
A visceral account of the turmoil experienced within a manic-depressive breakdown.
Griffiths (A Country Called Childhood: Children and the Exuberant World, 2014, etc.) is a dedicated recorder of her experiences. "My notebooks have always been very precious to me,” she writes, “and I travel with them wrapped, waterproofed, closer to me than my passport or money. They are footprints of my thoughts, tracks of journeys, curiosity-paths and desire-lines." What she writes in these notebooks eventually becomes stories, essays, and books, but the notebooks have also provided her with a space to try and make sense of her own mind. Griffiths, a winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, has bipolar disorder and can be susceptible to periods of mania and depression, the risk of both being heightened by exhaustion and stress. In this book, the author explores the period of time after a lengthy book project left her depleted. She was aware of being at risk of a mental break but far enough into it by the point of realization that treatment became exceedingly difficult. However, she was determined to capture as much of it as possible: the "honey on the razor's edge" of being able (or unable) to see things in new ways, hear music differently, ride the rapids of a torrent of ideas and thoughts. Griffiths is a skilled writer who ably harnesses this flood of emotions and thoughts, and her descriptions of the mania and depression are never unwieldy. There were countless times when she could have stopped writing, but Griffiths saw it through, exploring all the places her mind traveled: Greek and Roman views of mental health, the roles of friends and pets, the failings and lifelines of psychotherapy. Eventually, in order to get out of her own head and “see far horizons again,” she set out on the 800-kilometer Camino de Santiago in Spain.
Fortunately for everyone who has been affected by bipolar disorder, Griffiths—and her notebooks—survived the journey.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61902-726-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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