Synopses & Reviews
" A brilliantly documented chronicle of young woman's long struggle with schizophrenia."
-- Willard Gaylin, The New Republic
"Sylvia Frumkin," highly intelligent young girl, became a schizophrenic in her late teens and spent most of the next seventeen years in anti out of mental institutions. Susan Sheehan, a talented reporter followed "Sylvia" for almost a year talking with and observing her listening to her monologues, sitting in on consultations with doctors, even for a period sleeping in the bed next to her in a mental hospital.
"Susan Sheehan has committed an extraordinary act of journalism....She brings relentless intelligent attention to bear on a particular case, a journalistic practice that almost always results in new and disturbing insights into those mindless generalities and prejudice and certitudes we tend to carry around with us." -- Meg Greenfield, front page Washington Post Book World
"Sheehan is tenacious, observant and unsentimental. The history of a single patient leads us into a maze of understaffed institutions, bureaucratic fumbling, trial-and-error treatment and familial incomprehension. Though Sheehan keeps herself invisible, her sympathy is palpable."
-- Walter Clemons, Newsweek
By the author of Lift for Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair
Synopsis
Susan Sheehan is the author of eight works of nonfiction. In 1983, she received a Pulitzer Prize for Is There No Place On Earth For Me? She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.
Synopsis
This renowned journalist's classic Pulitzer Prize winning investigation of schizophrenia—now reissued with a new postscript—follows a flamboyant and fiercely intelligent young woman as she struggles in the throes of mental illness.
"Sylvia Frumkin" began showing signs of schizophrenia in her late teens. The next seventeen years of her life were spent in and out of mental institutions. Reporter Susan Sheehan followed Sylvia for almost a year and became immersed in her subject's life: talking with her, observing her, listening to her monologues, sitting in on consultations with doctors—even, for a period, sleeping in the bed next to her in a mental hospital. With Sheehan, we become witness to Sylvia's psychotic episodes, her unpredictable antics, and—through flashback—her formative childhood. The resulting book—now with a postscript that details Sylvia's later years—is filled with vivid accounts and biting humor, at once harrowing, humanizing, moving, and unforgettable.