Manic: A Memoir [Paperback]

An attractive, highly successful Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer, Terri Cheney had been battling debilitating bipolar disorder for the better part of her life—and concealing a pharmacy’s worth of prescription drugs meant to stabilize her moods and make her normal. In explosive bursts of prose that mirror the devastating mania and extreme despair of her illness, Cheney describes her roller-coaster existence with shocking honesty, giving brilliant voice to the previously unarticulated madness she endured. Brave, electrifying, poignant, and disturbing,Manicdoes not simply explain bipolar disorder—it takes us into its grasp and does not let go.

Cheneys chilling account of her struggle with bipolar disorder brilliantly evokes the brutal nature of her disease...Edgy, dark and often cynical, MANIC is not an easy book to read, but it has heart and soul to spare.Written in episodic chapters that mimic the ups and downs of bipolar depressionhypomania, mania, depressionCheneys book is a gut-churning ride.[a] gritty, vibrant, memoir brings this chaotic frenzy to life...through disaster and despair to end in hope. This is a poignant and compelling memoir ...The writing is outstanding, the story is gripping.Cheney brilliantly brings us along on her haunting and riveting journey of bipolar disorder. ...MANIC is extremely powerful.Filled with gorgeous writing...Echoes of William Styron abound.[Manic is] more than a train-wreck tearjerker, the memoir draws strength from salient observations&startlingly lucid descriptions.Cheney...writes with passionate clarity about depression and the lure of suicide but with especially keen intensity about mania...Superb...Cheneys remarkable chronicle of her painful odyssey is as eloquent as it is brave. It is also profoundly necessary, both for her and for us.Amazing and powerful...[MANIC] forces the reader into Cheneys bipolar world, into her deep and fearful depressions mixed with helÓ#