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He Wanted the Moon The Madness & Medical Genius of Dr Perry Baird & His Daughters Quest to Know Him

by Mimi Baird, Eve Claxton
He Wanted the Moon The Madness & Medical Genius of Dr Perry Baird & His Daughters Quest to Know Him

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ISBN13: 9780804137478
ISBN10: 0804137471



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A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.

 

Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized.

            Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage. 

     Fifty years after being told her father would forever be “ill” and “away,” Mimi Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. In time her fingers became stained with the lead of the pencil he had used to write his manuscript, as she devoted herself to understanding who he was, why he disappeared, and what legacy she had inherited. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the reaches of the mind and the redeeming power of a determined heart.

Synopsis

Mimi Baird, a Bostonian, is a graduate of Colby Sawyer College.  After working at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she later moved to Woodstock, Vermont, where she worked as an office manager at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. There she met a surgeon who had once known her father, a meeting that prompted her quest to finally understand her father’s life and legacy.  Mimi has two children and four grandchildren.  This is her first book.

 

Eve Claxton was born in London. She has been instrumental in creating six works of non-fiction as a co-writer or ghostwriter, and is the editor of The Book of Life, an anthology of memoir. She also works with StoryCorps, the National Oral History Project featured on NPR. Eve lives with her husband and three children in Brooklyn.


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Average customer rating 4.5 (2 comments)

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writermala , May 31, 2015 (view all comments by writermala)
This book is really a labor of love. Mimi Beard who missed a father in her life has painstakingly pieced the missing years together in a tribute to his surviving manic-depressive illness and his attempts as a doctor to find a cure. At times the account is heart-rending and the only redeeming feature is that the treatment meted out to the Mentally ill patients now is nowhere near what it was in Dr. Baird's days. However the wall that stands between the mentally ill and the rest of the world still stands. Bipolar Disorder is indeed a hard cross to bear and the stigma attached to it makes it doubly so. Hopefully Mimi Baird's story of her father will alleviate the suffering of others in a small way at least.

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kas , February 27, 2015 (view all comments by kas)
Through Daughter, Father Shows Why We All Must Want More than Can Be Found in Whole History of Medicine -- Demand the Moon! Note: In composing this review, I have assumed the reader to have read the summary provided on the page on which this is posted, or, regardless of what information this page does or doesn't provide, or to have found out this book's general topic. I was very excited to read He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him, and I was fortunate enough to win an advance edition (publication expected in February) through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers monthly giveaway program. Having finished the work, I have to say that author Mimi Baird met and then exceeded my high hopes; my five-star rating at the top of this review understates the value of this reading experience in my view. In fact, I think Baird has created a vitally important work that should be among the books everyone should (hope and try to) read at some point in life. I found ideas presented and questions raised in this text that would make it especially valuable reading for any professional engaged in critical services to diverse populations -- doctors, lawyers and teachers come first to my mind. In sum, this book imparts rare wisdom the ignorance of which tangibly impoverishes our society and limits the quality of human life. Given my wholehearted belief in the value of this read, I was somewhat surprised when to find Kirkus presenting a very different perspective in the recently published review of this book. The highlighted excerpt chosen to showcase the review's conclusions evidenced a much more circumscribed view of the value to be found in these pages:"For Mimi Baird, the book serves as closure; for general readers, it's a sobering account of how little we knew and how much we still have to learn about mental illness -- especially how not to treat it." This link connects to the complete review, for your convenience: http://goo.gl/36vUrh Contrary to the implications of that assessment, Mimi Baird's book is more than an insightful discussion of a personal quest. The text consists in large part of her father's own writings; his story is not just uncovered as a set of events that document the behavior that typified the illness for which he was hospitalized, the medical "treatments" he received, and details of the staggering professional and social losses he experienced after hospitalization. As it turns out, Dr. Baird was not only an outstanding practitioner of medicine with peerless academic qualifications for his profession, he was a gifted writer who possessed rich insight into his experiences as a mental patient. His papers provide straightforward, clear and rational descriptions of manifold elements of his life during his hospitalization. I found that Baird never dramatized the hardships he experienced, but he did not soften dismal conclusions about the terrible circumstances that arose directly from his mental illness diagnosis and the medical establishment's conception of what that illness entailed. Despite the rational presentation of Dr. Baird's observations to which the reader is privy, his attempts to relate details of his psychological experience in order to improve knowledge of the disease and find a path to better treatment were unsuccessful. In speaking of his own experience, this brilliant man was not credited by either his treating doctors or his friends and former colleagues in the medical profession. Catherine Mackinnon once wisely observed that power inheres in the ability to speak your truth and have it taken seriously by the wider community (unfortunately, I do not have the direct quotation available right now). There is an increasing amount of scholarship on the persistent powerlessness and substantial life limitations experienced by the mentally ill. Systemic flaws in the perspective on mental illness, present in society as a whole as well as within the medical/psychological professions, collectively create phenomena that have come to be described as sanism. This first-person narrative of sanism at work can do more to raise awareness about the warped perspective on mental illness that exists today and throughout Western history than any academic theory or historical review. However, I think a broader truth is to be found here, and this is what provides the basis for my belief in the great impact this book could have if read widely. Specifically, it seems everywhere I look people who can be found near either end of various spectrums of given human qualities and experiences, are routinely misunderstood and their truth is silenced. It's not always a minority that meets with this effect; I think the persistence of sexism for example is rooted in a similar social process, at least in part. This story of a great genius ignored by everyone has much to teach about the grievous harm that can be done when we fail to pay close attention to human differences -- whether in personal relationships, classrooms, courtrooms, or mental hospitals. This is just one key reason why I heartily encourage others to read this book. The fact is it's a quick read that is packed with stories and insights that are rarely available, let alone in such a convenient way. Thanks for reading my thoughts; I hope they are helpful to you in some respect.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780804137478
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
02/17/2015
Publisher:
CROWN PUBLISHING GROUP INC
Pages:
272
Height:
.90IN
Width:
5.40IN
Thickness:
1.00
Illustration:
Yes
Author:
Mimi Baird
Author:
Eve Claxton
Author:
Eve Claxton
Media Run Time:
B
Subject:
Biography - General

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