Description

I have read Ann Kolsrud's novel about living with schizophrenia. It is one of the best portrayals of the internal life of someone with psychotic illness that I have ever read. Ann beautifully captures the essence of the convoluted thought processes, paranoia and stigma that hounds persons with schizophrenia. I was particularly impressed with her sophisticated use of language to convey the experience of living with a mental illness. Her descriptions and metaphors are poetic. Dr. Linda Madson MD

About the Author

Ann Kolsrud, lives and writes in Iowa City, IA a college town rich in diversity. She has struggled with mental illness most of her life. Despite this adversity she has been diligent working on disability rights. She was the first to introduce a psychiatric service dog in the local area often educating people through her dog--Nick. Ann attended Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Book Extract

My parents aborted me when I was twenty-six. I was a year short of being the same age as the other great artists like Morrison and Joplin who seemed to die prematurely. But unlike them, I was never known. I was a voice never heard, perceived or understood. But I could always hear myself. Why didn't anyone else, I wonder? Perhaps it was just that mine was a voice no one wanted to hear.

In the beginning, I was born in America in the state of awareness. The first thing which I became aware of was pain. The first doctor in my life slapped me on the butt and made me cry. His name was Dr. Tork. I always remembered his name because it rhymed with "stork," that great big bird whose purpose in life was to drop a "bundle of joy" upon a family's doorstep. But that bird also left a big mess to clean when people were not looking up, unprepared to catch the weight of a life, which had been delivered to them. Sometimes I h...