“Crazy lady goes real crazy? Next thing you know she’ll be running around in the wallpaper.
Okay, real quick, all you English majors out there had to read that Yellow Wallpaper business about nine times, right? Man, that thing drove me nuts.
“Was she really in the walls, or was it just a manifestation of her madness?”
“Uh, I think you mean WOMANifestation!”
Then I used the circles from inside a 3-ring binder to pierce the arteries in my neck and end that class forever.
What works about this memoir really well is that I feel like, in reading it, the author has a good distance from her craziness. It’s clear, and she doesn’t do a lot of justifying. There’s a very strong distinction between the Ellen Forney narrating the story and the Ellen Forney going through some pretty terrible sicknesses. There’s many a memoir out there regarding craziness, but oftentimes you’ll put it down feeling like the writer must still be in the throes of it because they sure skimmed right by a thing or two that seemed pretty goddamn important.
“This is a book about my eating disorder. P.S. I DID get married 7 times since this book was published, but that’s totally unrelated.”
Uhhhhhhhh…..
These kinds of books are, in my opinion, good for you. When it’s done right, you get a glimpse into what someone else is going through. I don’t think most of us will understand what it’s like to be manic-depressive, but this book will help people at the very least understand what it was like FOR HER. There aren’t really spots where she says that You Just Wouldn’t Understand or I Can’t Figure It Out. It’s a pretty active exploration.
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