![]() ![]() ![]() But he never wonders about the authenticity of her sadness, which sucks her down and takes over everything. Sometimes his narrator wonders if Em is putting on the manic phase a bit, emphasizing her craziness for dramatic effect. But Pinto is also superb when talking about the highs and lows of bipolar disorder, which Em has. These conversations, dashing back and forth between topics, form the spine of the book. “No, silly, I’m talking about The Sound of Music.“ Freud was in the navy?” I asked, confused. Not that I’m racist, but why would they have a navy when they’re landlocked?” He must have been odd, even for an Austrian. “But that’s what Freud says every boy wants to do to his mother. “Ick,” I said when Oedipus wandered off, his eyes bleeding and his future uncertain, escorted by his daughter who was also his sister. Though the book is occasionally disorganized, as Pinto jumps around in time from his childhood to his adulthood to his teen years and back again, what shines is the dialogue, which conveys everything about its characters. ![]() Hat tip to Shannon for the recommendation! Through conversations with his mother, Em, about how she met his father and the course of her mental illness, we see the toll that Em’s illness has taken on her and on her family. Em and the Big Hoom (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is a son’s story of his manic depressive mother and his family’s life with her. Oh how I love a book that can speak unhysterically about the hysterical awfulness of living with a severe mental illness. ![]()
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