CONTINUE BREATHING

Greenfield’s novel is a harrowing, intimate account of a man living with mental illness.

Jordan Fineman has a lot going for him. He comes from a very supportive upper-middle-class family. He went to the best private schools and is attending Cornell. Bright and creative, he’s launching a career as a writer in the 1980s. He is also mentally ill, with hereditary obsessive-compulsive disorder and manic depression. This novel charts Jordan’s slow road to a modicum of stability as he learns to keep the worst of the demons at bay. A real hero here is his wise psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Rubin. The good doctor is available 24/7 and knows just how to treat Jordan’s behavior and balance his meds. The story is also a paean to modern psychiatric medicines, the root cause of such illness being a chemical imbalance in the brain. There are many twists and turns, progress and regress, in this decadeslong tale. (At one point, Jordan has some success as a stand-up comedian!) In an afterword, the reader learns what was long suspected: Jordan Fineman (fine man?), who appears in other Greenfield novels, is in fact the author’s alter ego. It’s a strange but compelling performance, this recounting of mental illness episodes by a lead who is now as “sane” as most of us. In fact, even as Jordan is experiencing psychotic episodes, he is aware that that is what they are but is often powerless to deal with them. At one point, he says, “I might have been a smart cookie, but I was still a sick puppy.” Try to imagine living with that awareness! Greenfield’s book provides an invaluable service—showing and humanizing the lived reality of mental illness.

A cleareyed, passionate, and authentic portrayal.