Interesting and informative interview on bipolar disorder...
11:00 Bebe Moore Campbell: "72 Hour Hold" (Knopf)
Author Bebe Moore Campbell presents her new novel about an African American mother who's willing to try just about anything to help her mentally ill teenage daughter.
Listen online: http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/05/08/04.php
And a review:
Mental illness goes underground
By JOHN FREEMAN
72 HOUR HOLD.
By Bebe Moore Campbell.
Knopf, 309 pp. $24.95.
A child's mental illness is never easy on parents, but it is especially hard on those who view the disease as a sign of weakness. In her latest novel, 72 Hour Hold, Bebe Moore Campbell addresses this issue with the tale of a mother who will do almost anything to see her daughter cured.
A self-made entrepreneur who runs a clothing store chain, Keri is a fixer at heart. When middle age creeps up, she hits the treadmill every morning. After her marriage falls apart, she redecorates. Failure is never an option.
So when Keri's only child goes off the rails just before matriculation at Brown, that, too, is a problem to be solved. "How long before she gets better?" are the first words out of her mouth when she hears that her daughter Trina has been diagnosed with bipolar disease
After five more hospitalizations, Keri adjusts her expectations and begins to discover why accepting her daughter's illness has been so hard. It is a painful and disorienting journey - this grudging letting-go of control - and 72 Hour Hold chronicles its every vicissitude.
Campbell has become something of an advocate for the mentally ill in recent years, but while this book occasionally overloads us with technicalities, it remains a novel and not a coping manual. She sketches a broad ensemble cast, from Keri's once-down-on-their luck co-workers to her two exes - a boyfriend and a husband.
Keri's instinct is to try to tackle the problem alone. This isolation draws Keri headlong toward a radical treatment program modeled on the Underground Railroad. In exchange for a hefty fee, a group of dedicated individuals will abduct Trina, move her northward by night through a series of safe-houses, and keep her until she stays on her medication.
Anyone who has ever had a sick relative understands the appeal of a magic-bullet cure, but this one would actually entail breaking laws - such as those against kidnapping. In return, this shadowy group promises Keri they can get around the loopholes in the "72 Hour Hold," the conditions of observation which must be fulfilled in order for a minor to be involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment.
Although this twist in the plot catapults the novel forward, the thematic resonance with African-American history feels forced. It's as if Campbell doesn't trust that Keri's horror and anger and confusion will provide this novel with enough drama.
It does, and then some. In fact, of all Campbell's novels, this one feels closest to the bone. Like Lionel Shriver's recent Orange Prize winner We Need to Talk About Kevin, it points its empathic eye at a mother's worst nightmare and does not look away. Had Campbell trusted the bravery of that one act, she may have had the makings of her best novel yet.
John Freeman lives in New York.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/books/reviews/3276982
Author Bebe Moore Campbell presents her new novel about an African American mother who's willing to try just about anything to help her mentally ill teenage daughter.
Listen online: http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/05/08/04.php
And a review:
Mental illness goes underground
By JOHN FREEMAN
72 HOUR HOLD.
By Bebe Moore Campbell.
Knopf, 309 pp. $24.95.
A child's mental illness is never easy on parents, but it is especially hard on those who view the disease as a sign of weakness. In her latest novel, 72 Hour Hold, Bebe Moore Campbell addresses this issue with the tale of a mother who will do almost anything to see her daughter cured.
A self-made entrepreneur who runs a clothing store chain, Keri is a fixer at heart. When middle age creeps up, she hits the treadmill every morning. After her marriage falls apart, she redecorates. Failure is never an option.
So when Keri's only child goes off the rails just before matriculation at Brown, that, too, is a problem to be solved. "How long before she gets better?" are the first words out of her mouth when she hears that her daughter Trina has been diagnosed with bipolar disease
After five more hospitalizations, Keri adjusts her expectations and begins to discover why accepting her daughter's illness has been so hard. It is a painful and disorienting journey - this grudging letting-go of control - and 72 Hour Hold chronicles its every vicissitude.
Campbell has become something of an advocate for the mentally ill in recent years, but while this book occasionally overloads us with technicalities, it remains a novel and not a coping manual. She sketches a broad ensemble cast, from Keri's once-down-on-their luck co-workers to her two exes - a boyfriend and a husband.
Keri's instinct is to try to tackle the problem alone. This isolation draws Keri headlong toward a radical treatment program modeled on the Underground Railroad. In exchange for a hefty fee, a group of dedicated individuals will abduct Trina, move her northward by night through a series of safe-houses, and keep her until she stays on her medication.
Anyone who has ever had a sick relative understands the appeal of a magic-bullet cure, but this one would actually entail breaking laws - such as those against kidnapping. In return, this shadowy group promises Keri they can get around the loopholes in the "72 Hour Hold," the conditions of observation which must be fulfilled in order for a minor to be involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment.
Although this twist in the plot catapults the novel forward, the thematic resonance with African-American history feels forced. It's as if Campbell doesn't trust that Keri's horror and anger and confusion will provide this novel with enough drama.
It does, and then some. In fact, of all Campbell's novels, this one feels closest to the bone. Like Lionel Shriver's recent Orange Prize winner We Need to Talk About Kevin, it points its empathic eye at a mother's worst nightmare and does not look away. Had Campbell trusted the bravery of that one act, she may have had the makings of her best novel yet.
John Freeman lives in New York.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/books/reviews/3276982