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Tisa
, April 04, 2017
(view all comments by Tisa)
Mental illness truly affects every member of a family when just one member, let alone two, is afflicted with this invisible yet debilitating disease. Haslett describes how a father and son's mental illness touches, embraces, and strangles the lives of these five family members. One particularly descriptive passage is Michael's comments on his family's medical history. He says, "In brief, Dad didn't make it; Mom's never taken a pill in her life; Alec had an ulcer early on, when they were still fashionable, but has since transitioned into the back-pain industry; and I'd guestimate Celia's chronic fatigue peaked around '94 somewhere in the Bay Area...." Michael's relationship with his doctor and the prescription drugs he takes/has taken are fairly typical of most people who suffer from mental illness. In this novel we get to see, through their own eyes, how each person copes with (or doesn't) having a father/husband and brother/son whose lives are fraught with fear, anxiety, hopelessness, and insomnia. Haslett has experienced this tragedy in his own family, and the accuracy of his character portrayals are evidence of that. This is an excruciatingly sad story, but one that is repeated in many families every year. He tells it with heart without being melodramatic.
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