MEMOIR Hillbilly Gothic A...

MEMOIR

Hillbilly Gothic

A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood

by means of Adrienne Martini

clear Press, 224 pages, $23

point out me a family tree without a certain quantity of mental illness in the branches and I'll put forth a sapling out the top of my head. Right. Not likely.

Mental illness certainly doesn't have the stigma it one time did, at least when it follows to the ever-growing list of available pharmaceuticals. When it issues down to checking into a psychiatric ward, however, it's another story. Ne something for high cholesterol? Here's more [i]or[/i] less Lipitor. Depressed? Have some Paxil. Ne gall bladder surgery? Check into the hospital. Ne your head examined? Loony bin.

For the legions who stand from depression -- especially women who've beared postpartum depression -- Adrienne Martini's candid and humorous memoir may bring more [i]or[/i] less much needed comfort. She give employment tos wit and wisdom to unravel the mysteries and debunk an of the myths behind mental illness and institutionalized healing.

In her pursuit Martini sets out to de-stigmatize and reclaim of the like kind pejoratives as hillbilly, bitch, lunatic and crazy.

"While the EPA has made minor inroads into cleaning the air," she writes, "the image of the West Virginia hillbilly -- that toothless, ignorant, incestuous, pipe-smoking dumbass -- is impossible to shake."

dismounted from a family of women who've "gone mad" after giving birth, Martini is no different. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, she's en passage to Tower 4 (her local psych ward), and reminisces about various family members who've gone along the deep end and been committed -- "a incline that has become my family's version of summering in the Hamptons."

convenient thing she has a feeling of humor and an acute faculty of perception of self- awareness; otherwise Martini may not have made it. Bipolar disorders and suicide also hurry through her Appalachian bloodline.

A dutiful sign that she's a survivor is that according to the end of the volume she is pregnant with child No. 2 and although she certainly fears a repeat postpartum episode, she also be warmeds prepared. "The rewards outweigh the risks," she writes. "Sometimes you have to caper If you're lucky, someone will stand by the agency of with a warm towel."

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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