The Woman In White / by Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins was never quite as widely respected as his contemporaries in Victorian England. Despite the fact that his numerous novels and story collections sold exceptionally well and his fan base always held him in high regard, his work never carried the same intellectual distinction as, say, a George Eliot or Charles Dickens. He may have been ahead of his time. Suspense, as a genre, wasn't really en vogue in the 19th century and despite the fact that the Gothic and Romanticist movements paved the way for more intrigue and mystery in fiction, literature remained a relatively more even-paced medium with stories involving more sensational themes relegated to second tier status. The fact that Collins' books outsold many of those same authors wasn't altogether missed by the reading public though critics seemed to diminish the effect that public affection for his work garnered. Nevertheless, in real life, Collins got on well with his peers, Dickens in particular co-authored and edited several serial literary publications with him, and it never seemed to bother him in the slightest that his writing achieved more mainstream success than critical acclaim. Among his two most famous works are The Moonstone (1868), about a mysterious diamond brought from India to England, and The Woman in White (1860), a story of intrigue surrounding a mysterious lady of the night. Of the two, The Woman in White was undeniably Collins favorite.

On his travels one night, young drawing master Walter Hartright meets a mysterious woman dressed all in white, disheveled and apparently in deep distress, whom he helps find the road to London only to discover later that she's escaped from an asylum, not for the first time evidently. Thinking little of it, Hartright sets out for a job he's undertaken at Limmeridge House, an estate in the northern part of the country where he's been commissioned to teach two young wards of a Mr. Frederick Fairlie, an elderly, ailing man who seldom leaves his room. Laura Fairlie, Mr. Fairlie's niece, and Marian Holcombe, Laura's half-sister, are nothing like their reclusive uncle and Mr. Hartright takes great pleasure in their company, discovering them to be fond of art and amiable. And in what initially seems to be an alarming coincidence, Mr. Hartright finds that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, so much so that he engages the topic in conversation only to find that the woman he met that night on the road is known by his pupil.

The mentally disadvantaged lady is called Anne Catherick and had lived for a time as a child at Limmeridge. She'd been devoted to Laura's mother, a lady who'd also dressed in all white, and had been taken away from the family under somewhat mysterious circumstances after the matron's death. Walter meanwhile has fallen in love with Laura despite the fact that she's already betrothed to a bullish member of the nobility named Sir Percival Glyde, whose engagement to Laura is more a matter of course owing to an agreement between Laura and her uncle. Upon meeting Glyde, Hartright becomes convinced through a series of conversations and correspondences that he was responsible for shutting up Anne Catherick, "the woman in white," inside the asylum, unjustly as it were, to keep her from revealing secrets concerning Glyde's own dubious past and ill-conceived plans for marrying Laura and inheriting Limmeridge House.

With as many plot twists as mysteries involved in the story, Collins weaves one of the more spellbinding novels of the 19th century. It's not all that easy to follow in places and characters like Marian Holcombe and the conniving Count Fosco (appearing later on in the narrative), both of whom can seem marginalized at first, can't be discounted as they end up holding key elements to the plot's development. Keeping track of the various settings--Limmeridge House, Glyde's own estate, Hartright's travels in Honduras, Italy, London and the English countryside--can get confusing as well. But the overall intrigue of the opening sequences, the dramatic conflict escalating with each chapter, the serious undertones of tragedy and impending doom as well as the climactic conclusion are rewarding enough to supersede any of the book's many plotboilers and accommodate its complex structure. (FIC COLLINS)

Scattershot: My Bipolar Family / a memoir by David Lovelace

"What I knew of the world mutated continually, all a huge metaphor now--broken and heavy and rolling straight toward me." (p. 179)

What if both your parents were certifiable manic-depressives? For David Lovelace, who grew up as the middle of three children born to an artist mother and Presbyterian minister father, this was just the case. It was his mother, Betty Lee, in whom the disease first found a victim. Only then in 1949, as she was first succombing to severe depression and suspended manic episodes, it was delusional schizophrenia which the doctors believed her symptoms most reflected. She would remain in and out of institutions over the next forty years, always on and off medications, unendingly and tragically devastated by the disorder's symptoms. His father's own inclinations of illness began as his erratic behavior over the course of David's young life began spiraling out of control. Continued eccentricities and peculiar (though often funny) habits became increasingly visible to a confused and disturbed David all the way up until David's own diagnosis in 1986, a year when he, his father and younger brother were all likewised committed. Only David's sister, Peggy, was left alone by the disease, her sanity a godsend for the whole family throughout the years.

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Much like Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (B JAMISON) or even Jeannette Walls' more recent work The Glass Castle (362.82092 WALLS), Lovelace meshes the problems of mental illness and dysfunctional family life with endearing, picquant candor, illuminating the world of loved ones affected by mental illness as much as those stricken with the affliction. Despite spending years fleeing his childhood home and his family's seemingly doomed existence, the author reveals that he's come to accept things as they are, optimistic about how life can win out over disease and illness. Lovingly, he reveals each of his family members as an especially unique individual, stating that the clan's mutual creativity and distinct personalities are as much a result of the "family condition" as a product of it. (616.895 LOVELACE)

Ordinary People / by Judith Guest

Judith Guest grew up as an aspiring writer throughout high school and college, majoring in English and Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her first and still best-regarded book Ordinary People originally began as a short story, eventually growing longer as Guest continued to explore the characters in greater depth. After winning the Kafka Prize for best first novel in 1976, the book was adapted for the big screen by director Robert Redford (his directorial debut) and would go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Redford and then teenager Timothy Hutton would also win Oscars for Best Director and Best Actor respectively.

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."They are people of good taste. They do not discuss a problem in the presence of the problem. And, besides, there is no problem. There is just Phase Two. Recovery. A moving forward." (p. 4)
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Conrad Jarrett is 17 and a student at Lake Forest (IL) High where in addition to academics, he participates on the swim team and sings in the choir. He's a seemingly well-adjusted youth, having been brought up in a priveleged home with two loving parents, an established group of friends, college on the horizon and even a few flirtatious love interests. But Conrad is anything but alright. The same goes for his parents, Calvin and Beth Jarrett, who not only have no idea how to deal with Conrad, but are visibly becoming unhinged themselves in the wake of two recent family tragedies--the accidental death of the Jarrett's older son "Buck" and Conrad's own attempted suicide just under a year ago.
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Things are in a bad way for the Jarrett household which is shaky at best, the trio weighed down by emotional tension, more or less isolated from each other since Conrad's return from the hospital some months ago and at a loss to forge any continuity or mutual intimacy. Mom Beth scampers about, busybodying herself with a myriad of social functions, trying to suppress her still cavernous grief over Buck's death, all the while behaving in a passively-aggressive, even dismissive manner towards Conrad, the less-favored son. And while Calvin is openly warm and affectionate toward all, his own naieve efforts to change things usually end in failure. Though his one notion, getting Conrad to see a psychiatrist, does finally garner some feedback and, if not family togetherness, then at least some insight into what's actually going on.
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Several things set Ordinary People at a level above the montage of suburban soap operas, semifactual docudramas or depressing after school specials. There's the integrity of the story, its matter-of-fact but not stereotyped people and situations, and its development of the characters. Circumstances don't change a whole lot between the time the novel begins sometime in autumn and when it concludes around late winter: Conrad's still depressed, Beth's still decimated with grief and Calvin's still rankled at the inertness of his life. The affluence of the Jarrett's surroundings is clearly apparent but never promoted as a reason for each character's turmoil. Pain, problems and grief originate within each individual and flow outwards; and though all three protagonists are provided with the opportunity to examine themselves, pinpoint the source of distress and push forward towards a resolution, not all are up to the task. (FIC GUEST)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest / by Ken Kesey

Among the major contributors to the American counterculture movement of the 1960's was author Ken Kesey. His relationships with former beatniks Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, along with public figures like the controversial Dr. Timothy Leary, and his passion for music by The Grateful Dead, helped fuse the beat generation to the hippie movement and initiate drug experimentation. The financial freedom afforded by One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1962) provided him with the opportunity to accommodate large, lavish parties--labeled "Acid Tests"--at his private residence where, in addition to progressive rock music, strobe lights and fluorescent paint, LSD was liberally provided and its use highly encouraged.
"I'm not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they're working on you". (p. 208)
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"But I tried, though." (p. 121)
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All social deviant Randle McMurphy wanted was to avoid hard time. A free-wheeling, happy go-lucky and thoroughly unapologetic individual, McMurphy has recently been convicted on a battery charge to go along with his lengthy list of prior offenses. Thinking a mental institution a better alternative to jail, he feigns insanity for the purpose of serving out, what he thinks, will be an easier sentence. He arrives expecting something not dissimilar to a vacation, but finds to his disappointment, that the asylum is no cake walk. The ward to which McMurphy is sent is run by the imperious, domineering Nurse Ratched, or the "Big Nurse", whose unchallenged authority has systematically subjugated all the (male) patients into a wretched lot of despairing, emasculated, and hopelessly dysfunctional individuals.
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McMurphy's arrival instantly changes things. His irrepressible charm, vibrant energy, coarse nature and overt references to Nurse Ratched's sexuality immediately wins over the other patients who feel, for the first time in a long time, the giddy thrill of rebellion and self-empowerment. Among them is the oversized Native Amerian "Chief" Bromden, a self-repressed deaf mute who shares a room with McMurphy and proceeds to relate all of his colorful, entertaining exploits. Through McMurphy's example, everyone suddenly finds "life" in everything from morning meals to group therapy sessions to the world beyond the ward. But the temporary wave of insubordination hasn't totally overwhelmed Nurse Ratched who combats McMurphy's antics with her own cold, derisive acts of restriction and subjection. Soon the pair's escalating battle for control of the ward becomes an all out war, one which can't help but get ugly, and which may define far more than just who's in charge.
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'Cuckoo's Nest' really is brilliant book, timeless in its own unique way. And though most may only know the story (as well as the title) from the award-winning film adaptation, the novel resonates at an especially superior level. Just the premise is as idiosyncratic as anything before or sense. Kesey evokes a myriad of psychological and existential themes, primarily with the character of McMurphy, but also through the transformation of the other patients like Chief Bromden, McMurphy's inadvertent proselyte who assumes the role of narrator. Dynamically cultivated through the figures of both McMurphy and the Chief is not just a story, but a thinkpiece on dehumanization, the limiting power of institutions, practical human experience, self-revelation and sexual identity. Through McMurphy, the other patients, many of them interred voluntarily, learn to live the lives they're too afraid to live. They're allowed the freedom and confidence to, for the first time, refute the overpowering condemnation of the institutional realm--"The Combine"--which has succeeded in subduing their natural instincts and inhibitions for so long.

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

At the age of 60, William Styron, world-renowned author of Sophie's Choice and Confessions of Nat Turner, succombed to a life-threatening depressive episode; one so severe that all faculties of his life were essentially disengaged as his mind became consumed by detrimental, even dangerous thought patterns. Insomnia was constant, his mood was one of perpetual "dank joylessness", his appetite diminished and he experienced a particularly odd aversion to alcohol--which had previously been, in his own words, "an invaluable senior partner with my intellect". Also absent was any initiative or ambition to work, play, participate or basically interact with others. Unable to apply himself to his profession, several projects and works-in-progress were abrubtly abandoned and lay gathering dust for months on end.

While his wife and family were sympathetic to the situation and various remedies were prescribed and proposed--all ineffective--little change came. In fact it got worse. Months into his illness, Styron began to have recurring self-destructive fantasies and was finally admitted to the psychiatric ward of a hospital for observance. It wasn't until a sustained period of drug treatments and psychotherapy that Styron's despair was ultimately lifted and his world began to be more accommodating. Personalized memoirs and essays focusing on mental illness don't always connect readers who, often times, tend to be either unsympathetic, dispassionate or unmoved by the unseen afflictions described by the narrator. But Styron's melodramatic recollections on his plight offer a genuine glimpse at his helplessness, the inner turmoil and fragmented mental capacities of his condition, not to mention the legitimately dire medical implications the "disease" ultimately instigated. (616.8527 STYRON)

Songs Without Words / by Ann Packer

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California-born author Ann Packer grew up the daughter of Stanford professors and evidence of her academic background is largely visible in her writings. Her book The Dive From Clausen's Pier received loads of popular acclaim and was recently made into a Lifetime movie. Songs Without Words highlights four major characters, each a victim of their own doubts, insecurities and perceived self-inadequacies within their ordinary domestic lives.

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Sarabeth and Liz have been close for a long time, practically sisters ever since Sarabeth's mother committed suicide after which Liz's family largely assumed care of Sarabeth on a semi-permanent basis. Now adults, the pair have their separate lives but remain on intimate terms, closely intertwined with each's families and familiar with the various problems, concerns, feelings and secrets common to middle age. Liz is the consummate housewife, married to Brody, "a keeper", who's not only a well-established corporate trendsetter, but a caring father for the couple's two teenagers--Lauren (16) and Joe (14)--and a constructive type with time for about-the-house hobbies and keeping in shape. Eccentric, soulful and free-spirited, Sarabeth's life is a bit different. A freelance artist and entrepeneur, she finds herself frequently dissatisfied with life--two failed marriages and multiple careers--and eager for experience. Her alternative means of fulfillment, more often than not, take shape in the form of various loose relationships and affairs, the latest of which has torn apart her emotional well-being.

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Liz's daughter Lauren is having the hardest time though. Sinking in a sea of anguish, depression and self-hatred, her loose attempts at numbing the pain--withdrawn isolation, pills, self-mutilation, etc.--culminate in a near-fatal accident, one which not only lands her in the mental ward of the hospital but brings the entire family, Sarabeth included, into confrontation with some deeply disturbing internal issues. Unable to grasp why Lauren, their well-rounded, A-student model child, could be so wretched, Liz and Brody find their own once-solid relationship with each other unraveling. Meanwhile Sarabeth, who may be the one person able to identify with Lauren's situation, continues her own downward spiral, removing herself from Liz and Brody's company and plunging further into her own pit of despair.

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Author and literary critic John Barth may have been on to something in his assessment of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar, and other somber-toned, self-evaluative books of a simlar vein, when he gave it the label of "secular news reports". It's an accurate enough description for this type of contemporary womens fiction which exhaustively investigates the feelings, reflections, doubts, fears, memories, regrets and convictions of the relavent, predominately female characters. This book is like that, though not in a necessarily negative capacity. Packer's Songs Without Words achieves what so many other authors and wannabe authors try but fail at--realize the self-conscious as well-articulated prose.

On the Couch: Great American Stories About Therapy / by Erica Cates

 Everybody's got problems. From the mightiest patriarch to the lowliest peasant, almost everyone can identify with the inescapability of life's ups and downs; and, subsequently, the comfort and emotional release a sensitive ear can bring when things are at their worst. While not all the stories in On the Couch deal with the woes of existence, they all confront the nature of talk therapy and its truly purposeful--though controversial--use as an antidote to mental and emotional dilemmas. Among such other literary notables along with the likes of John Updike and Amy Bloom, stories in this unique anthology center on the "behind closed doors" atmosphere of counselors and their patients. So whether you veiw talk therapy as some do: a universal cure for mental illness. Or even if you render the realm of psychology and psychotherapy as a profession of glorified hand-holders, this book is a win-win with its intriguing stories on, well, other people's "issues". (SSC ON)

The Crazy School / by Cornelia Read

26-year-old Madeline Dare may be a former debutante, but she’s hardly living a glamorous lifestyle currently as a history teacher at an alternative boarding school in western Massachusetts. An institution for at-risk kids and--in Madeline's case--court appointed teachers, much of her time at the Santangelo Academy is spent keeping her mentally disturbed pupils from going off in expectantly unpredictable ways. Still she’s popular with the kids, her toned-down rebellious streak and neverending supply of 60's reminisces (book is set in 1989) never failing to resonate with students, and warrant some backbiting from the other, less-liked faculty in the process.

When a student, Fay Perry, becomes pregnant by her boyfriend Mooney LaChance, Madeline is the only one to know of their predicament just prior to both kids sudden and shocking death by poisoning. Despite the hush-hush attitude assumed by the school’s eccentric headmaster, David Santangelo, along with much of the faculty, Madeline knows something’s amiss and becomes determined to have the truth realized even if it means being implicated in the ongoing investigation. Of course her part-time sleuthing’s not so popular with everyone, evident when certain "accidents" start to befall Madeline at seemingly every turn. Finding herself in too deep to back out now, Madeline must fight not only solve the mystery of the poisoned teens, but to clear her name and preserve her reputation in the process.

Cornelia Read's second Madeline Dare novel dishes out some serious attitude accompanying its heroine as she strives to peg the real menace at Santangelo Academy. Along the way, she encounters some particularly disturbing, off-the-wall characters at what could almost pass as a halfway house for the underaged. It's a place where curious, compelling and downright dangerous episodes are merely an on-the-job hazard. It's also what makes this a perfect 'read' (no pun intended) for fans of whodunit capers and amateur sleuth novels. (MYS READ)

The Flying Troutmans / Miriam Toews

Ever wished you could just run away from it all? Hattie Troutman does, but unfortunately, it all -- in particular, her family -- just seems to keep following her. Hattie's living in Paris and is recently homeless, recently boyfriend-less, and just a bit directionless when she receives a call from her 11-year old niece that she's urgently needed back home in Canada. She arrives to find her older sister deep in the throes of a serious depressive episode and her niece and nephew trying valiantly to fend for themselves and their sick mom.

Although I know that librarians are supposed to be immune to this, I was totally attracted to this book because of the cover. I don't know if the kid on the front is supposed to be Hattie's niece, Thebes, who has a mild obsession with art projects (especially creating giant checks out of posterboard to give to people she thinks need a little boost to their day) or if it's supposed to be a representation of Hattie herself -- who, although in her late 20's, is just a bit immature for her age and feels moderately to totally overwhelmed by the responsibility of suddenly being the primary caretaker of her sister's family. Regardless, the kid covering her eyes in the funny hat is a perfect representation of the mood of this book. A little wacky, a little serious.

At its heart, this book is a road trip book with literary underpinnings that are pretty well disguised by the book's quick pacing. After putting her sister in the hospital, Hattie and the kids embark on an epic journey in a marginally operational minivan across the United States to search for the kids' elusive artist father. They have some adventures and meet some nutty characters. More often than not, they ARE the nutty characters.

Hattie's niece and nephew are such appealing characters, by turns vulnerable and funny, wise and silly, that you can't help but be drawn into their voyage. Hattie has a complex relationship with her sister that the author gives us little glimpses of through flashbacks throughout the storyline. Hattie herself is tired of cleaning up her sister's messes, but she loves her family despite their flaws. She has to make an uncomfortable decision: what is she willing to give up for the ones she loves?

This book is has a wacky sense of humor and a streak of irony. While some of the characters are kind of out there in the zaniness realm, it does deal in a sensitive way with the effects of having a person with mental illness in the family and the unpalatable choices that family members are forced to make.