Title: Extraordinary Happenings on the Edge of Lunacy
Author: Mr. Frankie Princeton
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 9781543417036
Pages: 152
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Pacific Book Review
A devoted son writes a tribute to his mother who battled mental illness all her life and often entrusted her private thoughts to him in Extraordinary Happenings on the Edge of Lunacy.
As author Frankie Princeton tells us, his mother Amanda was four years old in 1946 when she heard, possibly witnessed her father’s murder/suicide in which he, her mother and brother were shot. Amanda was cared for by relatives and might have been thought to have had a “normal” childhood for an African American girl of her era. But for whatever reason, madness stalked her, and arose when he and his siblings were small. She would become angry, irrational, panicky, paranoid, and their father, a military man at the time, would take her away for long periods. Later Princeton learned she had been subjected to electroshock therapy. She was also sedated, and was not, he believes, given the same new medicines or treatments that white patients were receiving during those years. Once after days without sleep, in a heightened state of anxiety and realizing that her husband was going to take her to the hospital again, Amanda opened the car door while he was driving several times, until he had to turn around. Later she and the children’s father separated, fate took her to Alaska; a place she loved and where she managed to remain calm and happy for more than twenty years, surrounded by her children and able to keep a job. But in her latter years, the signs of her disorder began to return.
Princeton is a strong writer and has conveyed his mother’s biography almost like a sorrowful fable. He offers many opinions garnered after much study of her condition, believing she was never correctly diagnosed or treated. She retained both deep religious conviction and some folk beliefs from her childhood. Her complete story will never be known since her protective and old-fashioned grandparents kept much of the information to themselves. As Princeton’s sister noted, their mother always knew how much money she had in her pocket, and was in many ways clearly sane. He states we should think of those who are “mentally ill” as “mentally brave” people who have to face every day knowing that their deficiency may cause any number of scary, unpredictable situations to arise. At the end of the book Princeton offers information on the HIPAA rights of patients and their families, and a list of suggestions for how to act to help a loved one suffering from a mental disorder.
Profoundly personal, Extraordinary Happenings on the Edge of Lunacy is a book that will bring comfort and practical advice to those who, like the author, are determined to help a family member with a mental illness.
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