Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness - Softcover

Earley, Pete

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425213897 ISBN 13: 9780425213896

Publisher: Berkley, 2007

Synopsis

“A magnificent gift to those of us who love someone who has a mental illness...Earley has used his considerable skills to meticulously research why the mental health system is so profoundly broken.”—Bebe Moore Campbell, author of 72 Hour Hold

Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son—in the throes of a manic episode—broke into a neighbor's house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law.

This is the Earley family's compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the “revolving doors” between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience—and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way.

About this title

About the Author:

Pete Earley, a former reporter for The Washington Post, is the author of several works of nonfiction, including the bestsellers The Hot House and Family of Spies, and the multi-award-winning Circumstantial Evidence. According to the Washingtonian magazine, he is one of ten journalist/authors in America "who have the power to introduce new ideas and give them currency." Earley is also the author of two novels.

From AudioFile:

A journalist with a seriously mental ill son tells the chilling story of how difficult it was to find people and institutions that could help them. The larger story, told with equal grace and thoroughness, is that U.S. prisons and jails are increasingly warehousing people not reached by the mental health system. Michael Prichard's narration is classy and restrained. Letting the story itself remain prominent, he sounds concerned but never strays into melodrama. The struggles with the son's bipolar illness are heart-wrenching; the boy is always of the verge of spinning out of control. Yet the intensity of the author's personal story didn't prevent him from writing a balanced investigation on the broader issues. T.W. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0425213897
• ISBN 13: 9780425213896
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384