275 pages
English language
Published Oct. 30, 2018
"Dazzlingly, daringly written, marrying the thoughtful originality of Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts with the revelatory power of Neurotribes and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, this propulsive, stunning book illuminates the experience of living with schizophrenia like never before. Sandra Allen did not know her uncle Bob very well. As a child, she had been told he was "crazy," that he had spent time in mental hospitals while growing up in Berkeley in the 60s and 70s. But Bob had lived a hermetic life in a remote part of California for longer than she had been alive, and what little she knew of him came from rare family reunions or odd, infrequent phone calls. Then in 2009 Bob mailed her his autobiography. Typewritten in all caps, a stream of error-riddled sentences over sixty, single-spaced pages, the often incomprehensible manuscript proclaimed to be a "true story" about being "labeled …
"Dazzlingly, daringly written, marrying the thoughtful originality of Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts with the revelatory power of Neurotribes and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, this propulsive, stunning book illuminates the experience of living with schizophrenia like never before. Sandra Allen did not know her uncle Bob very well. As a child, she had been told he was "crazy," that he had spent time in mental hospitals while growing up in Berkeley in the 60s and 70s. But Bob had lived a hermetic life in a remote part of California for longer than she had been alive, and what little she knew of him came from rare family reunions or odd, infrequent phone calls. Then in 2009 Bob mailed her his autobiography. Typewritten in all caps, a stream of error-riddled sentences over sixty, single-spaced pages, the often incomprehensible manuscript proclaimed to be a "true story" about being "labeled a psychotic paranoid schizophrenic," and arrived with a plea to help him get his story out to the world. In A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise, Allen translates her uncle's autobiography, artfully creating a gripping coming-of-age story while sticking faithfully to the facts as he shared them. Lacing Bob's narrative with chapters providing greater contextualization, Allen also shares background information about her family, the culturally explosive time and place of her uncle's formative years, and the vitally important questions surrounding schizophrenia and mental healthcare in America more broadly. The result is a heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious portrait of a young man striving for stability in his life as well as his mind, and an utterly unique lens into an experience that, to most people, remains unimaginable"--
Pretty rude that Bob didn’t get proper writing credits. Also poor discussion of mental health and schizophrenia. Allen’s “investigations” into Bob’s reality were pointless and ironically were distracting because they seemed out of place. Like weren’t necessary and ended up interrupting the story’s flow.
This book had potential but unfortunately didn’t live up to the expectations I had prior to opening it. Though schizophrenia is what the novel claims to center around, I felt it only grazed the surface of what it’s like to live with mental illness. Allen’s chapters are interesting and somewhat informative, but they feel more like filler than necessary elements.
Thought this was a great book that showed the confusing and crazy times in the life of Bob, a relative of the author. A revised autobiography, told as a revised biography of Bob by his relative -- every other chapter being a dive into verifying events by Sandy, research, hearing from others about how true Bob's memory was, etc. -- of a man's struggles as both a teen and adult with the mental health system.
Reality is a weird, funky thing. Many of the stories he tells seem unreal, but turn out to have definitely happened. I think it was great that Sandy did so much investigation into understanding how "schizophrenia" is perceived, it's history, psychiatric survivors, families, patients, victims, critics, and more. A well-detailed look at things, that I think people could really benefit from reading.
An interesting aside is that, at one point, Bob has the following experience: …
Thought this was a great book that showed the confusing and crazy times in the life of Bob, a relative of the author. A revised autobiography, told as a revised biography of Bob by his relative -- every other chapter being a dive into verifying events by Sandy, research, hearing from others about how true Bob's memory was, etc. -- of a man's struggles as both a teen and adult with the mental health system.
Reality is a weird, funky thing. Many of the stories he tells seem unreal, but turn out to have definitely happened. I think it was great that Sandy did so much investigation into understanding how "schizophrenia" is perceived, it's history, psychiatric survivors, families, patients, victims, critics, and more. A well-detailed look at things, that I think people could really benefit from reading.
An interesting aside is that, at one point, Bob has the following experience:
In the sky, he could make out some stars.
He looked down at his dog, who sat patiently by.
He looked again at the sky. Something had caught his eye.
An airplane?
He looked and--there!--he saw it again.
He couldn't tell what it was, but it was moving.
He kept staring, trying to decide whether his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the more he focused on it, the more he was certain there was something there, something blocking out just the stars at first, and then a stand of clouds, SOME DARK SHADOW OF SOME CRAFT:
It was coming closer.
Couldn't be an airplane.
Bob squinted and as he did a ray of energy hit him in the head, throwing him onto the dust.
He blacked out.
