SECOND ALIBI: THE BANALITY OF LIFE

A semiautobiographical exploration of mental illness from Harnisch (An Alibiography, 2014).

With conditions ranging from tobacco addiction to schizophrenia, this mixture of personal reflections, fictional characters and a portion of a screenplay investigates what makes the mentally ill tick. Writing at times as his fictional protagonist Ben Schreiber, other times as Ben’s alter ego, Georgie Gust, and occasionally as himself, the author takes readers on a journey involving troubled young men with troubled young minds. The narrators—including, in various narrative formats, the psychologist Dr. C; Claudia, the seductive neighbor; and an older, supportive wife named Kelly—grapple with their psychological problems for the benefit of the reader. What, the reader may wonder, is it like to suffer from the hallucinations of schizophrenia combined with the tics of Tourette’s syndrome? As the author asks, “What do you do when people assume your truths are delusions?” The answers to such questions and the ways in which they are portrayed prove complex. Mixing diary entries concerning the daily struggles of the fictional Georgie with a screenplay detailing past abuses of the fictional Ben, messages are often jumbled though not without merit. For instance, when the narrator announces that “I had a paranoid spell last night. [My wife] was texting me, and I was convinced that it was my stepmother impersonating my wife,” the sting of schizophrenic paranoia is made real. As the author says: “Of course my life would be easier without schizophrenia—sure I wish I didn’t have this condition.” Occasional statements prove less than informative—“Sometimes I’m more productive than at other times”—and throughout the book, even the most careful of readers are likely to feel some confusion navigating scenes including a sexually abusive grandmother and chapter endings such as “Georgie places the letter in his messy desk’s drawer and walks out with a winter coat on and the whole scene changes completely.” Whether all such elements come together to form a memorable impression of illness or merely a collection of fragmented stories depends greatly on the reader’s willingness to follow along on the path provided, no matter how many twists and dead ends are on the way.

Wildly varied in style and content, making for an informative and strange trip through the experience of mental disorders.