Book Description
Hunter S. Thompson's legions of fans have waited a decade for this book.
They will not be disappointed. His notorious Screwjack is as salacious, unsettling, and brutally lyrical as it has been rumored to be since the private printing in 1991 of three hundred fine collectors' copies and twenty-six leather-bound presentation copies. Only the first of the three pieces included here -- "Mescalito," published in Thompson's 1990 collection Songs of the Doomed -- has been available to the public, making the trade edition of Screwjack a major publishing event.
"We live in a jungle of pending disasters," Thompson warns in "Mescalito," a chronicle of his first mescaline experience and what it sparked in him while he was alone in an L.A. hotel room in February 1969 -- including a bout of paranoia that would have made most people just scream no, once and for all. But for Thompson, along with the downside came a burst of creativity too powerful to ignore. The result is a poetic, perceptive, and wildly funny stream-of-consciousness take on 1969 America as only Hunter S. Thompson could see it.
Screwjack just gets weirder with its second offering, "Death of a Poet." As Thompson describes this trailer-park confrontation with the dark side of a deservingly doomed friend: "Whoops, I thought. Welcome to the night train."
The heart of the collection lies in its final, title piece, an unnaturally poignant love story. What makes the romantic tale "Screwjack" so touching, for all its queerness, is the aching melancholy in its depiction of the modern man's burden: that "we are doomed. Mama has gone off to Real Estate School
...and after that maybe even to Law School. We will never see her again."
Ostensibly written by Raoul Duke, "Screwjack" begins with an editor's note explaining of Thompson's alter ego that "the first few lines contain no warning of the madness and fear and lust that came more and more to plague him and dominate his life...." "I am guilty, Lord," Thompson writes, "but I am also a lover -- and I am one of your best people, as you know; and yea tho I have walked in many strange shadows and acted crazy from time to time and even drooled on many High Priests, I have not been an embarrassment to you...."
Nor has Hunter S. Thompson been to American literature. Quite the contrary: What the legendary Gonzo journalist proves with Screwjack is just how brilliant a prose stylist he really is, amid all the hilarity. As Thompson puts it in his introduction, the three stories here "build like Bolero to a faster & wilder climax that will drag the reader relentlessly up a hill, & then drop him off a cliff....That is the Desired Effect".
Download Description
In 1991, Hunter S. Thompson published, numbered, and signed just three hundred and twenty-six copies of Screwjack, a slim, thirty-eight-page volume featuring three screwball stories. The books, particularly the twenty-six leather-bound copies (one for each letter of the alphabet), became instant collector's items, and before long, used editions were selling for up to one thousand dollars. Now, with this innovatively designed trade edition, fans can enjoy these much sought-after stories -- and more -- without breaking the bank. A compilation of quintessentially outrageous and extravagant Thompson tales, Screwjack and Other Stories makes for a truly amazing read. "Mesolito", previously published in Songs of the Doomed, is a trippy account of a long wait in a Los Angeles hotel while high on speed and mescaline. "Death of a Poet" relates a visit to a friend's trailer home that takes a number of bizarre twists before ending in violence. "Screwjack", the third and final tale in the collector's edition, shares the gritty details of a sexual escapade between Thompson and his black tomcar. Featuring, as an additional bonus, two new stories that Thompson fans will rush to get their hands on, and published simultaneously with Fear and Loathing in America: The Gonzo Letters Collection, Volume II, Screwjack and Other Stories is a highly anticipated publishing event.
Customer Reviews:
Thompson Lyricism and Bad Craziness.......2007-05-01
This is by no means Thompson's best piece; it is exceedinly short and disjointed, though in my opinion this is part of its charm. I enjoyed this book (can 59 tiny pages, of which only 11-59 are actual story, divided into 3 distinct and debatably unrelated sections, really be considered a book?) through an overriding enjoyment and awe of Thompson's style of writing, which has forever been a source of inspiration and joy.
I feel it neccessary to qualify my review at this point that I am by no means a Thompson expert though I plan to read everything he has ever written. To date I have only read, in addition to Screwjack, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. Still I feel that the experience of these two classic works of Gozo Journalism give a true insight into the free-spirited and honest heart of Thompson's work.
This "book" is, as I have mentioned, a compilation of three parts entitled "Mescalito," "Death of a Poet," and "Screwjack." The first is a look into the experience of a Mescaline high, which is rather hilarious, and must be read to be fully appreciated. This portion is also included in Thompson's Songs of the Doomed.
The rest is bad craziness. I enjoyed it, in an uncomfortable sort of way, though Mescalito is by far my favorite. It deals with the essentailly tragic and incredibly disturbing subjects of beastiality and suicide and should be read by those who can appreciate the artistic rendering of these stories, lacking either advocation or disaproval, in an attempt to simply examine these issues. Otherwise, I would advise readers to steer clear of these portions. It requires a non-judgmental and open world view that many people are incapable or unwilling to adopt.
As to the price issue: this is an excessively expensive and hard to come by volume. I would recomend checking it out from a library (my own solution). You wouldn't even need to check it out. I read it in just under an hour, and I would consider myself a reader of average speed.
I would definitely recomend it as I would the two Fear and Loathing's already mentioned. Thompson's blunt and humorous style is one of the joys that keeps me coming back for more, and it is at the heart of this small, yeat dense, piece.
ScrewJack weird.......2007-02-23
Thompson attempts to write fiction, in this short novel. Unfortunately, minus a homoerotic story interlude, his tone and narative are powerfully reminicient of his journalism.
I think Thompson is a writer that requires observable content on which to base his writings, and while I doubt that Screwjack was based exclusively in fiction the book lacked what is most enjoyable about his writings; his jangled view of reality.
Don't get me wrong, Thompson is one of my favorite authros, but the only reason to be this book is to make his other works more vibrant.
Quick And Dirty Gonzo.......2006-02-05
I love this little book. People who measure their literature by the pound may complain about this one, but fans of Thompson will whip right through it. SCREWJACK was first published privately in 1991, and has been spawning rumors ever since. Only one of its essays, a 1969 account of Thompson's first mescaline trip written in real time, was previously published elsewhere. As well as being an incredible piece in that you can actually see him writing himself through the freakout and emerging on top, "Mescalito" perfectly crystallizes the life of a freelance writer (some of us, anyway): " ... [H]alf drunk full of pills and grass with deadlines past and people howling in New York ... the pressure piles up like a hang-fire lightning ball in the brain. Tired and wiggy from no sleep or at least not enough. Living on pills, phone calls unmade, people unseen, pages unwritten, money unmade, pressure piling up all around to make some kind of breakthrough and get moving again."
SCREWJACK also includes the tale of a psychotic friend who killed himself in front of the author after making a disastrous bet on a football game, and the title story, a demented love scene between Thompson's crazier alter-ego Raoul Duke and a huge black tomcat, reminiscent of some mad cross between Mikhail Bulgakov and Dennis Cooper.
(A version of this review was originally published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.)
It's already been said..........2006-01-06
Forget the review written immediately beneath mine for the moment. It's not that his points are invalid, it's that none of what he said really mattered. "Build like Bolero to a faster & wilder climax that will drag the reader relentlessly up a hill, & then drop him off a cliff..." Michael Kear's review further down stated this quote from the good Doctor. You got it man. He said everything that needed to be said in right in that line. Bravo, man. I was impressed when I read your review!
Short Stories.......2005-12-12
For those of you who wrote that the price of the book was outrageous should have looked and seen that the book is short. It is a collection of three SHORT stories.
Peronsally, I adored the book, all three stories, and was just happy that Screwjack was released.
The third story, and title of the book, was such an amusing story I even named my cat Mr. Screwjack. However, I can assure you his and I's relationship is a little less intense.
Amazon.com
The appealing Chinese American NYPD detective April Woo is back in this popular series. Psychiatrist Jason Frank has asked for her help in finding Maslow Atkins, a training analyst who's gone missing after a therapy session with his patient Allegra Caldera, a highly disturbed young woman. Maslow was last seen setting off for an evening run through Central Park, so April calls in a canine tracking unit. The dog's discovery of the body of a homeless man who was the only known witness to Maslow's abduction causes a rift between April and her boyfriend Mike Sanchez, the homicide cop who abruptly pulls rank to take over the case. But April stays on Maslow's trail anyway, and soon finds that although Allegra seems to be the logical suspect, two out-of-control teenagers from affluent families may also be involved in the kidnapping and murder. When Allegra turns out to be connected to Maslow in ways neither he nor Jason Frank suspected, the plot takes another fascinating turn.
What makes author Leslie Glass's police procedural series unique (Stealing Time, Judging Time, Loving Time) is the cross-cultural relationship between April and Sanchez, a romance doomed to failure, according to Skinny Dragon, April's endlessly fascinating mother. It took several books in the Time series for April to fall into Mike's well-muscled arms, and if Skinny Dragon has her way, there'll be plenty more before she dances at their wedding. --Jane Adams
Book Description
It's a foggy early September evening when Dr. Maslow Atkins, a psychoanalytic candidate and student, is assaulted and disappears in Central Park. The only people who know what happened to him are Pee Wee, an inebriated homeless man hoping for a handout; Brandy and David, two wealthy private school kids who roam the Internet and Central Park; and Allegra, Maslow's disturbed young patient who's obsessed with him.
Investigating outside her jurisdiction of Midtown North and without authority in the sacred confines of the Central Park Precinct, NYPD Detective Sergeant April Woo prompts a media frenzy and the rage of the whole department with a K-9 search that yields nothing. Nothing, that is, except the keen interest of Brandy and David, who think they can tease the cops, bluff the tracking dog, and get away with murder.
April's gut instinct still tells her that Maslow is alive, and she won't stop until she finds him. Working against the clock and demons of her own, she and psychoanalyst Dr. Jason Frank become embroiled in a surprising and lethal tangle of family secrets and adolescent rage. Nobody escapes unscathed, for no family's story is as innocent as it seems.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Book!.......2002-01-28
First time for me on reading anything from Leslie Glass and I'm glad I did. This was great reading material that I could not put down. The suspense was great and I thought the character playing April Woo was fantastic. It had a great plot, especially when I found out that the patient was the missing Dr's own sister! That really blew me away. I can't wait till I can get more of her books and read them!
I don't get all the praise for this series........2001-12-29
I'm apparently missing something here-- or perhaps if I'd read the earlier books I'd feel more loyal and then be more forgiving. Or I might just be the wrong audience.
In any case, I found _Tracking Time_ tiresome even for airplane reading. I thought the plot was contrived, the characters quite thin (particularly the monsterous parents who were clearly set up to "deserve" the children they got), and I didn't find April Woo particularly compelling as a heroine.
I could see that the writing was fluent, and Glass seems to have a good feel for police procedure, so perhaps it really is just that it hit the wrong notes for my taste. You be the judge.
Only in New York.......2001-12-04
"Tracking Time" could happen in no other place. The urban wilds of Central Park, the pseudo-sophistication of the very young, the myriad of indulgences available, the hyper-success driven adults, and the pounding pace of life are unique to New York City.
Ms. Glass deftly presents an excellent suspense story that has its small surprises throughout, but is not a whodunit. The strongest area of the narrative is characterization; the extremely sympathetic Dr. Maslow Atkins, the thoroughly distasteful over-privileged teenagers, the self-absorbed parents, and the homeless bum, PeeWee. The regulars: April Woo, Skinny Dragon, Mike Sanchez, and Jason Frank remain fresh in this series.
The tale hinges on Dr. Atkins disappearance. He takes off for his regular jog in the park at dusk, not even carrying his billfold, and drops from sight. He is known as a man of very regular habits, and when he fails to show up for an appointment, Dr. Frank is concerned enough to call in his friend Detective April Woo. The suspense notches sharply upward when we find out the would-be killers were interrupted in their attack on Dr. Atkins, and have hidden the wounded man in a culvert in a remote part of Central Park. Will the killers come back and finish the job? Will the police and K-9 dogs locate him first? Will Dr. Atkins somehow effect his own release? I found the scenario a real page-turner.
I get exasperated with April, who goes from a splendidly efficient police officer to giggling girlishness over her infatuation with chauvinistic Mike. However, this is an ongoing trait in the entire series, and I put up with it as you do with a friend who seems to have a glaring weakness. A larger theme of the story is how children who "have everything" can go so disastrously wrong. Unlike some other readers, I had sympathy for the parents who, while gravely flawed themselves, had such monstrous offspring. Most troubled children do not have the advantages of the best schools, and the best counseling money can buy. In their inept and offhand way, these parents did love their children and surely, whatever their faults, did not deserve to be saddled with these juveniles from hell.
This is a worthy addition to a good series with an added bonus that it gives you something to think about after you close the book. Recommended.
Only in New York.......2001-12-04
"Tracking Time" could happen in no other place. The urban wilds of Central Park, the pseudo-sophistication of the very young, the myriad of indulgences available, the hyper-success driven adults, and the pounding pace of life are unique to New York City.
Ms. Glass deftly presents an excellent suspense story that has its small surprises throughout, but is not a whodunit. The strongest area of the narrative is characterization; the extremely sympathetic Dr. Maslow Atkins, the thoroughly distasteful over-privileged teenagers, the self-absorbed parents, and the homeless bum, PeeWee. The regulars: April Woo, Skinny Dragon, Mike Sanchez, and Jason Frank remain fresh in this series.
The tale hinges on Dr. Atkins disappearance. He takes off for his regular jog in the park at dusk, not even carrying his billfold, and drops from sight. He is known as a man of very regular habits, and when he fails to show up for an appointment, Dr. Frank is concerned enough to call in his friend Detective April Woo. The suspense notches sharply upward when we find out the would-be killers were interrupted in their attack on Dr. Atkins, and have hidden the wounded man in a culvert in a remote part of Central Park. Will the killers come back and finish the job? Will the police and K-9 dogs locate him first? Will Dr. Atkins somehow effect his own release? I found the scenario a real page-turner.
I get exasperated with April, who goes from a splendidly efficient police officer to giggling girlishness over her infatuation with chauvinistic Mike. However, this is an ongoing trait in the entire series, and I put up with it as you do with a friend who seems to have a glaring weakness. A larger theme of the story is how children who "have everything" can go so disastrously wrong. Unlike some other readers, I had sympathy for the parents who, while gravely flawed themselves, had such monstrous offspring. Most troubled children do not have the advantages of the best schools, and the best counseling money can buy. In their inept and offhand way, these parents did love their children and surely, whatever their faults, did not deserve to be saddled with these juveniles from hell.
This is a worthy addition to a good series with an added bonus that it gives you something to think about after you close the book. Recommended.
Time to Time.......2001-10-31
Leslie Glass ran out of things to say after her first three "Time" books. Her once-clever series on the strong Asian female detective in love with a Hispanic added some fun and humanity that New York detective series needed.
But Leslie Glass doesn't know enough about the Asian cultures nor the Hispanic cultures of New York City. If she does, she doesn't convincingly write about them. She takes plenty of pages to develop a story of a missing psychiatrist, but it is a plodding attempt. She left out the suspense. She forgot to include interesting characters. I was glad when it ended.
Lets hope Ms. Glass gets her verve back. She is capable of much better stuff.
Average customer rating:
|
Satellite Tracking
Manufacturer: John F. Rider Publisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000BV84WY |
Product Description
Satellite Tracking by Stanley Macko, M.S. Member, Systems Management Staff Defense Electronic Products Division, Missile and Surface Radar Subdivision, RCA.
Product Description
This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A160543. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: The modern engineer has a myriad of new tools to assist in the design and implementation of ever increasingly complex control systems. A promising emerging technology is rapid prototyping. By totally integrating the development process, a Rapid Prototyping System (RPS) takes the designer from initial concept to testing on actual hardware in a systematic, logical sequence. At the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), we have applied the concept of rapid prototyping to the discipline of flight control. The NPS RPS consists of a commercially available rapid prototyping software suite and open architecture hardware to permit the greatest possible range of control and navigation projects. The RPS is crucial in that it allows students to participate in projects from the initial concept to the flight testing phase of the design process. This thesis will describe in detail two of these projects; the development of an Airspeed Controller using the RPS tools; and the integration of a Voice Control System developed by ViA, Inc. of Northfield, Minnesota. Both projects demonstrate the inherent flexibility and risk reduction of the rapid prototyping a roach to system design.
Book Description
Word count: 366.
Product Description
This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A138673. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: Many enterprises are still running and maintaining several operating system and platform dependent legacy applications. The variety of platforms and operating systems poses a challenge to system-wide interoperability and performance, increases the cost of maintenance, locks enterprises into certain vendors, and leads to a lack of an adequate information infrastructure which results in a waste of computer resources, manpower, and time. In this thesis, we have designed and implemented a component-based three-tiered Web-based Inventory Ordering and Tracking System (IOTS) prototype that demonstrates the technical feasibility of making an enterprise's applications both interoperable and salable on a system composed of multiple platforms and different operating systems. The prototype uses CORBA, an industry-backed, non-proprietary, standard-based distributed architecture and Java, a high-level object-oriented language that enables enterprises to leverage the use of the Internet and benefit from the enhancements in the client/server and the decrease in the prices of desktop computers. The prototype demonstrates how to overcome the problem of the stateless nature of HTTP and build the Object Web where Java applets run on the IIOP. The prototype's source code can be tailored to some specific business requirements and enterprises having problems similar to those addressed may benefit from this research and adopt, its development methodology.
Product Description
This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A606193. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: In order for decision makers to efficiently make accurate decisions, pertinent information must be accessed easily and quickly. Component based architectures are suitable for creating today's three-tiered client-server systems. Experts in each particular field can develop each tier independently. The first tier can be built using HTML and web browsers. The middle tier can be implemented by using existing server side programming technologies that enable dynamic web page creation. The third tier maintains the database management systems. Java servlets and Java provide programmers platform and operating system independent, multi-threaded, object oriented, secure and mobile means to create dynamic content on the web. The Java Servlets Session Tracking API is a potential solution to problems arising from the fact that HTTP is a "stateless" protocol. The use of connection pools with database applications provides faster data access, and decreases the use of system resources. Connection pools also offer a solution to the limited number of connections open to a specific database at a given time. This thesis explores existing client-server architectures and server side programming technologies such as CGI, ASP and Java Servlets. The thesis also prescribes the design and implementation of a three- tier application using Java and Java servlets as the middle tier, and Java Database Connectivity to communicate with a database management system.
Product Description
This is a AIR FORCE INST OF TECH WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB OH SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A351324. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: The Air Force and the rest of the Department of Defense rely on valid information to make National Security decisions. The veracity of the information used to make those decisions can dramatically affect which course of action our military will take. Therefore, it is important that our leaders be able to recognize if they are being deceived. This study examines the results of training five categories of deception cues to 190 Air Force Officers. The officers were tested to determine their baseline deception detection abilities, then trained on the deception cues, Arousal, Emotion, Cognitive Effort, Communicator Tactics, and Memory Processes, then retested to determine how much information they retained. The results of this study show that there is a return on the investment in training deception detection for at least four of the deception cues.
Book Description
In the past 30 years, commercial transport traffic has more than doubled in both Europe and North America. Asian commercial transport traffic over this period of time has likely increased even more. Traffic jams are routine and they can happen in any segment of the highway system at any time. Moreover, manufacturing companies increasingly apply just-in-time practices in order to cut down inventory costs. As any mismatch between supply and demand can result into significant disturbances of manufacturing processes, just-in-time practices necessitate punctual, reliable, and flexible transportation. Emerging technologies in real-time communications systems provide the means for commercial vehicle operators to meet the increasingly complex customer expectations in a highly dynamic environment with unreliable traffic conditions.
FLEET TELEMATICS: Real-Time Management and Planning of Commercial Vehicle Operations combines wireless telematics systems with dynamic vehicle routing algorithms and vehicle-positioning systems to produce a telematics-enabled information system that can be employed by commercial fleet operators for real-time monitoring, control, and planning. The book presents a Messaging & Fleet Monitoring System that automatically identifies deviations between the planned and the current state of the transportation system and a Dynamic Planning System (DPS) that provides real-time decision support considering the current state of the transportation system. The DPS uses newly developed dynamic vehicle routing algorithms to find high-quality solutions and adjust schedules and routes immediately.
Product Description
This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA DEPT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A636024. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: To keep the operational cost down and increase the mission time with minimum human intervention, autonomous recovery or docking operation of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is required. Central to the successful autonomous docking process of the AUV is the capability of the AUV being able to track and steer itself accurately towards the dock which is constantly perturbed by wave motion effects. In addition, for accurate acoustic homing during the final stages of the docking, the AUV requires acoustic systems with high update rates. Equipped with acoustic modem, ARIES had experimentally been tested to have an update rate of only about 0.3 Hz. These delayed data can potentially cause a false commanded reference input to the tracking system in between the updates and cause ARIES to miss the moving cage's entrance. This thesis attempts to investigate the effectiveness on the use of cross track error and line of sight error sliding mode controller coupled with dynamic waypoints allocation in horizontal steering of ARIES in docking operations. In the absence of cage heading updates, a predictive method based on angular rate and direction of motion was used to estimate the dynamics of the moving cage. Further analysis was performed in order to understand the limitations of such an implementation.
Customer Reviews:
Well written and refreshingly imaginative..........2006-11-14
I read the Joona trilogy when I was about ten years old and distinctly remember being whisked away into Engelmann's lilac and cedar scented world where the swans battled evil to save their kingdom.
It is about children who go on a journey to a magical land and journey within themselves. They must confront the evil there and their own personal struggles.
The Joona books are excellent for young reader's imaginations. I'm 22 now and still vividly recall how they, along with other children's classics, ignited my interest and adore for fantasy.
Engelmann's story of adventure, virtue, and yes, swans is unforgettable.
Product Description
multiple books ship as one item. save on shipping/handling charges.
Amazon.com
Tales of family dysfunction have become so commonplace that a postcard witticism suggests that a conference for children of functional families would be sparsely attended. Certainly Clea Simon, whose two older siblings were gripped by schizophrenia in their teens, wouldn't be there. She lays out a bleak, affecting story of growing up in a family where the spotlight necessarily shone on the insistent dissociations of a brother she remembers as once gentle and brilliant and a sister whose screeching, violent terrors sent young Simon scrambling for safety. Cogent explanations of mental illness and slices of therapy interweave with Simon's stories and those of similarly besieged families and siblings who must dismantle huge emotional barricades in order to live fully as adults. Sometimes this mix is uneasy, such as when a professionally cool distance too swiftly replaces the white heat of painful memories.
Book Description
In classic books such as Girl, Interrupted and When Rabbit Howls, the mentally ill depict their own harrowing worlds. In Mad House we have an account of the devastating effects of mental illness on the lives of those who share their world--the healthy siblings of those afflicted. Clea Simon was shattered when her older brother, Daniel, a freshman at Harvard, began hearing voices, making it impossible for him to function. He later committed suicide. Schizophrenia next claimed her sister, Katherine, who has moved from one institution to another after refusing any help from her family. Simon, who spoke with hundreds of other siblings of the mentally ill and with experts in the field, confronts the issues healthy siblings face, from guilt (Why do I deserve to be okay?) to fear (Will illness claim me or my children next?) to anger at being neglected by parents overwhelmed by the needs of the mad child. Part memoir, part practical guide, Mad House is a compelling and compassionate book destined to help many people come to terms, as Simon has, with the unique pain of living with a sibling's mental illness.
Customer Reviews:
Astounding!.......2007-09-07
My older brother carries a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. I could easily relate to the author's family dynamics and the effect that her siblings' mental health conditions had on her family. This book combines the author's personal experiences juxtaposed with research and reports from others who have siblings diagnosed with a mental health condition.
This book also helped me better understand my own family's dysfunction, why I relate to people and situations in particular ways, and it allowed me to forgive myself for some of the ways in which I treated my brother. I cannot recommend this book enough for anyone who has a member of their family diagnosed with a mental illness or provides family therapy. Reading this book helped me to gain insights into myself and into my family. It's a must read!
madhouse.......2005-11-09
When Clea Simon was growing up, her otherwise pleasant childhood was marred by odd outbursts and eccentric frightening behavior of her older brother and sister, both of whom would be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Simon, an intelligent and resourceful young girl turned to friends, books and fantasy games to distance herself from the chaos in her home. When she became an adolescent, her brother was hospitalized for mental illness, and she put pressure on herself to be the good, high-achieving child in the family. She was accepted into Harvard and on the outside looked like a wholly successful, confident person. However, years of suppressing her fears about her siblings began to take its toll, and she decided to enter therapy in order to find out who, apart from a high-achiever, she really was. Mad House is not just her story, however, but the many others' who she interviewed and whose accounts are smoothly woven into the book. It will almost certainly reassure readers with mentally ill siblings that they aren't alone.
I cried when I read it...........2004-09-03
My brothers aren't schizophrenic, like Ms. Simon's siblings. They are autistic, however, and the impact of their condition on our family dynamic was much the same. I am the only normal one of three children, and during my life I've felt rage, grief, loneliness, and the dreaded "I-wish-they-would-die-and-free-us-from-this-illness". Because of my brothers I have problems with intimacy and my single greatest fear is that I will bear a child with autism.
The guilt that accompanies my feelings is overwhelming. Ms. Simon's book showed me that I'm not alone, that my feelings aren't illegimate, and that a sort of emotional peace can be had when there's no cure (or even effective treatment) in sight. Thank you for writing this book--I needed it more than any other book I've ever read (and that includes my cherished Bible).
From the author.......2001-09-25
Hi Folks,
I just wanted to say thank you to all the readers who've read Mad House and either posted here or contacted me. So many of you are also siblings, and I am gratified that many of you have found your experiences reflected in my book. I've tried to show, through my experiences and the dozens of you interviewed, that while our story may be one of the quieter ones in our family, it is still valid and deserving of space. Strength and health to you all!
I've used the same combination of memoir and interviews (more than 70) in my new book, "Fatherless Women: How We Change After We Lose Our Dads" (Wiley). If any of you read that, please let me know what you think.
peace,
Clea
Maelstrom of Mental Illness .......2000-08-28
Clea is the luckiest of her siblings. Her older brother Daniel, a brilliant boy, showed signs of psychosis in early adulthood. He somehow managed to attend Harvard and upon leaving the renowned university, succumbs to his illness. He marries a woman from his halfway house and they have a daughter. The brother commits suicide and the baby remains unheard from. Clea was in college at the time of her brother's death and her parents curiously give her a false account of how her brother killed himself. That is never explained.
Clea's sister Katherine/Althea appears to be the most unstable. She, too, started showing signs of the illness in late adolescence and was barely able to fight her psychosis and finish high school. She lived from hospital to halfway house, never really finding her niche. Her erratic behavior precluded her from staying at halfway houses and in one memorable account in the book, a landlady requested that her parents come and collect her after she defecated on a mattress. She remained a "living" casualty of mental illness; at the close of the book, Clea did not even know where she was.
Clea is a strong voice, a strong advocate for the families of the mentally ill. Her poignant book is yet another reminder that mental illness is often a family illness because of the tragic impact it has on non-mentally ill members.
Books:
- Serving Crazy with Curry
- Sharpe's Eagle (Richard Sharpe's Adventure Series #8)
- Sharpe's Fury: Richard Sharpe & the Battle of Barrosa, March 1811 (Richard Sharpe's Adventure Series #11)
- Slaughterhouse-Five: Or The Children's Crusade, A Duty Dance With Death (25th Anniversary)
- Sometimes a Great Notion
- Stitching Stars: The Story Quilts of Harriet Powers (African-American Artists and Artisans)
- Straight into Darkness
- Tears of Pride
- The Alchemist's Daughter: A Novel
- The Bellmaker (Redwall, Book 7)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Me and My Dad: A Baseball Memoir
- Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road
- White Ghost Girls
- A Whaling Captain's Daughter: The Diary of Laura Jernegan, 1868-1871
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
- Genetics: From Genes to Genomes
- Evaluation: An Integrated Framework for Understanding, Guiding, and Improving Policies and Programs
- Bring in the Arts: Lessons in Dramatics, Art, and Story Writing for Elementary and Middle School Cla
- A Prison Diary: Vol. One
- Little Giant: The Life and Times of Speaker Carl Albert
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
The Rum Diary : A Novel
The Curse of Lono
The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time
Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library)
Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness Modern History from the Sports Desk
