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Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love

Autor Zack McDermott
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 17 sep 2018
*Soon to be an HBO limited series*

"Glorious...one of the best memoirs I've read in years...a tragicomic gem about family, class, race, justice, and the spectacular weirdness of Wichita.[McDermott] can move from barely controlled hilarity to the brink of rage to aching tenderness in a single breath."
--Marya Hornbacher,New York Times Book Review

Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old Brooklyn public defender, woke up one morning convinced he was being filmed,Truman Show-style, as part of an audition for a TV pilot. Every passerby was an actor; every car would magically stop for him; everything he saw was a cue from "The Producer" to help inspire the performance of a lifetime. After a manic spree around Manhattan, Zack, who is bipolar, was arrested on a subway platform and admitted to Bellevue Hospital.

So begins the story of Zack's freefall into psychosis and his desperate, poignant, often hilarious struggle to claw his way back to sanity. It's a journey that will take him from New York City back to his Kansas roots and to the one person who might be able to save him, his tough, big-hearted Midwestern mother, nicknamed the Bird, whose fierce and steadfast love is the light in Zack's dark world.

Before his odyssey is over, Zack will be tackled by guards in mental wards, run naked through cornfields, receive secret messages from the TV, befriend a former Navy Seal and his talking stuffed monkey, and see the Virgin Mary in the whorls of his own back hair. But with the Bird's help, he just might have a shot at pulling through, starting over, and maybe even meeting a partner who can love him back, bipolar and all.

Introducing an electrifying new voice, GORILLA AND THE BIRD is a raw and unforgettable account of a young man's unraveling and the relationship that saves him.
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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780316315128
ISBN-10: 0316315125
Pagini: 288
Dimensiuni: 140 x 210 x 19 mm
Greutate: 0.25 kg
Editura: Little, Brown and Company
Colecția Back Bay Books

Notă biografică

Zack McDermott has worked as a public defender for The Legal Aid Society of New York. His work has appeared in theNew York Times,This American Life,Morning Edition,andGawker,among other places. He lives in New York and LA.

Recenzii

"A funny, finely observed andsurprisingly touching depiction of what it feels like to lose your mind. Byallowing us to witness his lowest and most delusional moments, and the slow andtentative process of returning to the world, Zack McDermott provides a grippingportrait of a very real human battle too often ignored and misunderstood. I ambetter for reading this book."—Sarah Hepola,New York Timesbestselling author ofBlackout
"Zack McDermott's portrait of a mind under assault from bi-polar illness is both fascinating and heart-breaking to observe, and he takes us into his experience with riveting intensity. But McDermott's real achievement is capturing the moving determination and steadfast love of the mother who saves him, the remarkable Bird who breaks the loneliness, quiets the fear and gives him a home worth returning to. I was so moved by this book and these people."—George Hodgman,New York Timesbestselling author ofBettyville
"A poignant memoir...[McDermott's] book asks us todestigmatize mental illness by familiarizing us intimately with the issue."—Los Angeles Review of Books
"McDermott brings a vivid and unsettling degreeof intimacy to his descriptions of mania's onset. . . His work as a public defender grows out ofa deep sense of empathy for the stigmatized and marginalized that's evident onevery page. He uses that empathy to construct a deeply compassionate portraitof his mother - a resilient woman whose love helps ground him in the real, evenin moments when his reality is at its most friable."—NPR.org
"Astartlingly moving memoir of mother and son, structural injustice andinflammable mental illness.Gorilla andthe Birdis as piss-cuttin' a pieta as anyone has any right to hope for.And Zack McDermott -- guy's a fleet, funny, unsentimental storyteller whomanages that rare thing: He allows a damaged soul be found."—Kent Russell, author ofI Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son
"Acaptivating and witty memoir about a young lawyer's gut-wrenching struggle withmental illness and the fierce, protective love of his remarkable mother anddedicated friends, Zack McDermott'sGorilla and the Birdis not only adeeply powerful reminder of our own vulnerability, but a truly inspirationaltestament to the strength of the human spirit. This book makes accessibleexperiences that some may wish to ignore but that urgently require ourattention, acceptance and empathy."—Elizabeth Ford, M.D., author ofSometimes Amazing Things Happen
"Gorillaand the Birdwillmake you laugh, cry, and wonder what would happen if we were allbrave enough to tell the stories of our relationships with love andmadness. I needed this book."—Kiese Laymon, author ofHow to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
"A tale of madness, self-destruction, and the stalwartpresence of a family...McDermott's memoir is decidedly offbeat, unfoldinglike a country song. There's the law, some good jokes, substance abuse, andlove lost and found, but there's also a keenly felt sense of justice for thepeople who can't catch a break in this world, 'the dregs, the castoffs,the addicts'...If the Joads were tanked up on Bud Light and Haldoland Steinbeck were under Hunter S. Thompson's influence, this might be theresult-rueful, funny, and utterly authentic."—Kirkus Reviews
"A remarkably written (and lived) memoir about hard beginnings,bad genes, delusions of grandeur, and epic mother love...holds us rapt."—Huffington Post
"[A] poignant and powerful debut...an importantresource for anyone impacted by the scope of bipolar disorder, as well as thosewho want to learn more about it."—The Rumpus
"Glorious...one of the best memoirs I've read in years.The sheer, sharp pleasure of McDermott's prose is reason enough to pick it up...Gorilla and the Bird, though sure to bemarketed as a mental health memoir, is equally a tragicomic gem about family,class, race, justice, and the spectacular weirdness of Wichita, Kan.... McDermottgives us a flawed, funny, self-aware narrator with a powerful command of hisown voice; he can move from barely controlled hilarity to the brink of rage toaching tenderness in a single breath. While he sustains his pell-mell pace fromthe first page to the last, he also covers an enormous amount of territory,carrying the reader from a brutally funny description of childhood in the heartof the Midwest to an unflinching exploration of the racism embedded in theAmerican justice system. At the center ofGorillaand the Birdis a beautiful and profoundly affecting portrait of the Bird,McDermott's mother - a woman as real, raw, and obstinate in her love for theGorilla [McDermott] as he is in his love for her...With deceptive effortlessness,this book carries the reader through both the peculiar twists and turns of thebipolar mind, and over some complex, shifting terrain in ethics and Americanlife."—Marya Hornbacher, New York Times Book Review