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Overview
An attractive, highly successful Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer, Terri Cheney had been battling debilitating bipolar disorder for the better part of her life—and concealing a pharmacy’s worth of prescription drugs meant to stabilize her moods and make her "normal." In explosive bursts of prose that mirror the devastating mania and extreme despair of her illness, Cheney describes her roller-coaster existence with shocking honesty, giving brilliant voice to the previously unarticulated madness she endured. Brave, electrifying, poignant, and disturbing, Manic does not simply explain bipolar disorder—it takes us into its grasp and does not let go.
Synopsis
"I didn't tell anyone that I was going to Santa Fe to kill myself."
On the outside, Terri Cheney was a highly successful, attractive Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer. But behind her seemingly flawless façade lay a dangerous secret for the better part of her life Cheney had been battling debilitating bipolar disorder and concealing a pharmacy's worth of prescriptions meant to stabilize her moods and make her "normal."
In bursts of prose that mirror the devastating highs and extreme lows of her illness, Cheney describes her roller-coaster life with shocking honesty from glamorous parties to a night in jail; from flying fourteen kites off the edge of a cliff in a thunderstorm to crying beneath her office desk; from electroshock therapy to a suicide attempt fueled by tequila and prescription painkillers.
With Manic, Cheney gives voice to the unarticulated madness she endured. The clinical terms used to describe her illness were so inadequate that she chose to focus instead on her own experience, in her words, "on what bipolar disorder felt like inside my own body." Here the events unfold episodically, from mood to mood, the way she lived and remembers life. In this way the reader is able to viscerally experience the incredible speeding highs of mania and the crushing blows of depression, just as Cheney did. Manic does not simply explain bipolar disorder it takes us in its grasp and does not let go.
In the tradition of Darkness Visible and An Unquiet Mind, Manic is Girl, Interrupted with the girl all grown up. This harrowing yet hopeful book is more than just a searing insider's account of what it's really like to live with bipolar disorder. It is a testament to the sharp beauty of a life lived in extremes.
Publishers Weekly
Cheney, a former L.A. entertainment lawyer, pointedly dispels expectations of a "safe ride" through this turbulent account of bipolar disorder. With evocative imagery-time-shuffled recollections meant to mirror her disorienting extremes of mood-Cheney conjures life at the mercy of a brain chemistry that yanks her from "soul-starving" despair to raucous exuberance, impetuous pursuits to paralyzing lethargy. Caught in a riptide of febrile impulse, she caroms from seductions to suicide attempts while flirting recklessly with men, danger and death, only to find more hazards in the drastic side effects of treatment. More than a train-wreck tearjerker, the memoir draws strength from salient observations that expose the frustrations of bipolar disorder, from its brutal sabotage of romance and friendship to the challenge it poses to the simplest emotions, such as "the terrors of being happy" that augur mania's onset. Though she sustains an ominous mood and relays horrifying incidents with icy candor, Cheney lightens up at times, as when she marvels at the ease of masking her condition at an office that brings out everyone's manic side. But the narrative hopscotch frustrates readers' need for grounding and context that might clear up Cheney's muddled history and satisfy readers' urge to learn the fallout of her impulse-driven episodes. Her startlingly lucid descriptions of illness merit a more concise chronology. (Feb.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
From Barnes & Noble
During her 16-year career as a topflight intellectual property and entertainment law attorney, Terri Cheney worked for prominent clients including Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, Michael Jackson, and Quincy Jones; but when she wasn't impressing clients, she was driving herself crazy. As this memoir demonstrates, her bipolar disorder hit her more like a train wreck than a rollercoaster ride; she gobbled down prescription pills; binges and purges; attempts suicide; resorts to electroshock treatment. Nothing worked until words: "I grew angry, first at the illness, then at the doctors, then at the patients themselves. Just spit it out! I wanted to say. Then it finally dawned on me: It wasn't their fault. The patients simply didn't have a vocabulary for their illness. Why should they? Mania, suicide, psychosis-such things were hardly the stuff of polite conversation. None of us knew how to express ourselves, because madness was one long, inarticulate howl. It needed a voice. It needed words. And so I started to write."Peter C Whybrow MD author A Mood Apart
“[a] gritty, vibrant, memoir brings this chaotic frenzy to life...through disaster and despair to end in hope. ”Dr. Lori Altshuler
“This is a poignant and compelling memoir ...The writing is outstanding, the story is gripping.”Andy Behrman
"Cheney brilliantly brings us along on her haunting and riveting journey of bipolar disorder. ...MANIC is extremely powerful."Demitri F. Papolos. M.D. and Janice Papolos
“Filled with gorgeous writing...Echoes of William Styron abound.”People Magazine
"Cheney’s chilling account of her struggle with bipolar disorder brilliantly evokes the brutal nature of her disease...Edgy, dark and often cynical, MANIC is not an easy book to read, but it has heart and soul to spare."MD author A Mood Apart
"[a] gritty, vibrant, memoir brings this chaotic frenzy to life...through disaster and despair to end in hope. "Doctor
"This is a poignant and compelling memoir ...The writing is outstanding, the story is gripping."M.D.
"Filled with gorgeous writing...Echoes of William Styron abound."People
“Cheney’s chilling account of her struggle with bipolar disorder brilliantly evokes the brutal nature of her disease...Edgy, dark and often cynical, MANIC is not an easy book to read, but it has heart and soul to spare.”Los Angeles Times
"Written in episodic chapters that mimic the ups and downs of bipolar depression—hypomania, mania, depression—Cheney’s book is a gut-churning ride."Boston Globe
"Cheney...writes with passionate clarity about depression and the lure of suicide but with especially keen intensity about mania..."Orange County Register
"Amazing and powerful...[MANIC] forces the reader into Cheney’s bipolar world, into her deep and fearful depressions mixed with her giddy, high-flying manic moods."Providence Journal
"Superb...Cheney’s remarkable chronicle of her painful odyssey is as eloquent as it is brave. It is also profoundly necessary, both for her and for us."Los Angeles Times
“Written in episodic chapters that mimic the ups and downs of bipolar depression—hypomania, mania, depression—Cheney’s book is a gut-churning ride.”Orange County Register
“Amazing and powerful...[MANIC] forces the reader into Cheney’s bipolar world, into her deep and fearful depressions mixed with her giddy, high-flying manic moods.”People
“Cheney’s chilling account of her struggle with bipolar disorder brilliantly evokes the brutal nature of her disease...Edgy, dark and often cynical, MANIC is not an easy book to read, but it has heart and soul to spare.”Boston Globe
“Cheney...writes with passionate clarity about depression and the lure of suicide but with especially keen intensity about mania...”Providence Journal
“Superb...Cheney’s remarkable chronicle of her painful odyssey is as eloquent as it is brave. It is also profoundly necessary, both for her and for us.”Publishers Weekly
Cheney, a former L.A. entertainment lawyer, pointedly dispels expectations of a "safe ride" through this turbulent account of bipolar disorder. With evocative imagery-time-shuffled recollections meant to mirror her disorienting extremes of mood-Cheney conjures life at the mercy of a brain chemistry that yanks her from "soul-starving" despair to raucous exuberance, impetuous pursuits to paralyzing lethargy. Caught in a riptide of febrile impulse, she caroms from seductions to suicide attempts while flirting recklessly with men, danger and death, only to find more hazards in the drastic side effects of treatment. More than a train-wreck tearjerker, the memoir draws strength from salient observations that expose the frustrations of bipolar disorder, from its brutal sabotage of romance and friendship to the challenge it poses to the simplest emotions, such as "the terrors of being happy" that augur mania's onset. Though she sustains an ominous mood and relays horrifying incidents with icy candor, Cheney lightens up at times, as when she marvels at the ease of masking her condition at an office that brings out everyone's manic side. But the narrative hopscotch frustrates readers' need for grounding and context that might clear up Cheney's muddled history and satisfy readers' urge to learn the fallout of her impulse-driven episodes. Her startlingly lucid descriptions of illness merit a more concise chronology. (Feb.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information