72 Hour Hold

Reading this book by Bebe Moore Campbell, I wasn't sure if it was fiction or non-fiction. 72-Hour Hold is the story of a woman trying to deal with her 18-year-old daughter's bipolar illness. It's a harrowing story filled with interesting, realistic characters. At times, it reads more like a diary (this happened, and then that happened) than a novel, but for the most part the story is compelling and moves along quickly. Campbell, who is African American, draws parallels between mental illness and slavery, which I thought were particularly powerful. But the most heart-wrenching parts of the story are the mother's anguish over her daughter's pain and her own helplessness in dealing with the mental health system. Whether it's bipolar illness, another form of mental illness, drug abuse, or any of the myriad other things that we worry about as parents, our own helplessness is what makes the situation positively unbearable.

I listened to, rather than read, this book, and did not particularly like the reading by Pamella D'Pella. D'Pella uses different voices to portray the various characters, but with so many characters, she ends up using the same voice for several characters, which I found extremely annoying. Thus, Clyde, the protagonist's ex-husband, and Bethany, the mother of another child with mental illness have the same grating voice. All of the nurses and social workers speak with similar Asian-sounding accents, and several young women charaters speak like breathless baby dolls. This definitely detracted from the telling of the story, and left me wondering how well written the book actually is. I guess I'll have to read it to find out.