Mental Illness

John Nash is born and raised in Bluefield, West Virginia. As a child, he is introverted and quiet, preferring reading and performing experiments to playing with other children. He is obsessed with codes and patterns and enjoys playing pranks on his sister and schoolmates. Intending to become an engineer like his father, Nash secures a scholarship to study at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. After a year, he abandons engineering to major in mathematics. He... Read A Beautiful Mind Summary

Hattie Owen’s life changes the summer she turns 12 and meets the young uncle she never knew existed in Ann M. Martin’s middle-grade novel, A Corner of the Universe (2002). Uncle Adam has been kept a secret because of his mental problems. Adults have trouble handling his emotional extremes, but shy Hattie finds a true friend in her exuberant uncle. Adam teaches Hattie to explore life beyond the safety of her front porch. As Hattie... Read A Corner of the Universe Summary

All the Bright Places is a young adult novel written by Jennifer Niven that deals with the topic of teen suicide. The book was winner of the Goodreads Choice award in 2015, the same year it was first published. Niven tells the story from two different voices, those of high school students Theodore Finch (who goes by “Finch”) and Violet Markey. The characters first meet at the top of their high school bell tower, where both... Read All The Bright Places Summary

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An Unquiet Mind, written by Kay Redfield Jamison and first published in 1995, is a memoir about a clinical psychologist’s experience living with manic-depressive illness. The book details her life, from her early experiences as a child, through the beginning of her mood swings, her diagnosis of manic-depressive illness, her struggles with the disease, and her eventual management of and control over it, following years of therapy and medication. Aside from having experienced it, Jamison... Read An Unquiet Mind Summary

Behind Her Eyes, a psychological thriller, was written by Sarah Pinborough and published in 2017. The book has sold over 1 million copies worldwide and was adapted for a TV series by Netflix. While clearly a best seller, there is great divergence of opinion on the book’s very unexpected twist at the end, with the publishers using the hashtag #WTFThatEnding to promote the book.Plot SummaryLouise is a single mother living in London and working as... Read Behind Her Eyes Summary

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“Big Blonde” is a short story written by Dorothy Parker. It was first published in 1929 in The Bookman (a prestigious New York City literary magazine) and won the O. Henry competition for the best story that same year. It was later published in Parker’s 1930 short-story collection Laments for the Living.This study guide refers to the online flipbook version of “Big Blonde.”Content Warning: The source text contains references to domestic violence, alcohol addiction, and... Read Big Blonde Summary

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Brain on Fire (2012) is a memoir by New York Post writer Susannah Cahalan that details her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease, anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Cahalan recollects the journey through illness that took her from a normal, 24-year-old journalist to a misdiagnosed psychotic patient, and back again. In 2018, Netflix released a film based on Cahalan’s story, produced by Cahalan and Charlize Theron.Plot SummaryCahalan wakes in a hospital with no understanding of how she... Read Brain On Fire Summary

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In December 1985, prominent novelist William Styron, in the depths of severe depression, found himself at a crossroads. Prepared to commit suicide, Styron opted instead to seek treatment. After seven weeks in a psychiatric ward, Styron reentered the world with a renewed sense of self and a will to live. When Primo Levi, a prominent Italian scientist, writer, and Holocaust survivor, killed himself in 1987, Styron responded to the widespread criticism of Levi’s suicide with... Read Darkness Visible Summary

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Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman" was first published in China in 1918, during a period of significant cultural and political upheaval in the country. The Qin dynasty, in power since 1644, had recently collapsed from internal and external pressures in the 1912 Xinhai Revolution, marking a dramatic break from the past. New ideas about government, philosophy, and science prompted many Chinese intellectuals to reflect on long-held traditions and look toward a rebirth of the... Read Diary of a Madman Summary

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Don Quixote is a novel in two parts by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes published between 1605 and 1615. The novel portrays the life of a middle-aged Spanish man who decides to become a knight, just like the characters in the works of fiction he loves. Considered to be a foundational work of Western literature and one of the first modern novels, Don Quixote is one of the most translated books of all time. It... Read Don Quixote Summary

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Every Last Word, by Tamara Ireland Stone, is a young-adult novel published in 2015. Samantha McAllister, the book’s protagonist, is a junior in high school who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). While Samantha appears like any average teenage girl, underneath the surface she is different from the majority of her peers: dark thoughts, incessant worries, and an obsession with the number three plagues nearly all of her waking moments. Through Samantha’s struggle to navigate... Read Every Last Word Summary

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Fight Club (1996) is the debut novel of American author Chuck Palahniuk. Three years later, American filmmaker David Fincher directed the film adaptation starring Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Edward Norton as the Narrator, and Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer. This study guide uses the 2018 paperback edition published by W. W. Norton & Co.Fight Club is a contemporary work of literary fiction that contends with masculinity, materialism, consumer culture, and modern disillusionment. Inspired... Read Fight Club Summary

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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) is a graphic novel memoir written and illustrated by underground cartoonist Alison Bechdel. The book centers on Bechdel’s relationship with her late father Bruce Allen Bechdel, who died in what she believes was a death by suicide. Fun Home is a non-linear narrative that rehashes events from Alison Bechdel’s youth and adolescence. Her memories are presented in the comic panels, overlayed with her prosaic, retrospective musings in text boxes... Read Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Summary

Susanna Kaysen’s 1993, Girl, Interrupted, is a memoir that explores Kaysen’s time as a teenage psychiatric patient in McLean Hospital in the late 1960s. Kaysen explores the murky definitions of mental health and illness, as she recounters her experience of being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and makes compelling arguments about the subjective nature of personality, behavior, and disorder. Girl, Interrupted is a bestselling book and was adapted into the 1999 film starring Winona Ryder... Read Girl, Interrupted Summary

Louise Glück is among the most lauded poets in the American canon. Glück’s writing is often surgically precise in terms of formal craft, and reveals a deep emotional complexity. She addresses sadness, mourning, trauma, and individual suffering metaphorically through the natural world, mythology, autobiographical events, or universal truths. She is known for alluding to cultural myths and personas in her work, some of which appear in “Gretel in Darkness” through the perspective of young Gretel... Read Gretel in Darkness Summary

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Heart Berries is a memoir written in connected, lyrical vignettes by Terese Marie Mailhot. It was published in 2018. The book tells the story of Mailhot’s life as a First Nations woman who moves from Canada to the American Southwest, struggles with bipolar disorder, and comes to terms with her past traumas and tumultuous, sometimes violent marriage. Plot SummaryThe beginning of the book chronicles Mailhot’s love affair with a White man named Casey, who leaves... Read Heart Berries Summary

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“Hop-Frog” (originally titled “Hop Frog; Or, the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs”) is among the last short stories by American horror and fiction author Edgar Allan Poe. First published in The Flag of Our Union in 1849, “Hop-Frog” explores themes of revenge, “madness,” and dehumanization. Poe explores similar themes in another short story published several years earlier, “The Cask of Amontillado,” a tale of betrayal and vengeance. Such thematic elements recur often in Poe’s work, given that... Read Hop-Frog Summary

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American Beat-era poet Allen Ginsberg began writing “Howl” as a private recollection for friends, though he later published the long poem in his 1956 book Howl and Other Poems. Also known as “Howl: For Carl Solomon,” the poem cemented Ginsberg’s status as a prophet-poet in the romantic literature vein of Walt Whitman and William Blake (two major influences). “Footnote for Howl,” written in 1955, is the final portion, though it’s not always included with the... Read Howl Summary

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In his 2016 psychological thriller I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reid writes about the struggles of depression, social anxiety, and loneliness. Jake, a former physics postdoctoral student and avid writer, works as a janitor in a rural high school. As he contemplates suicide, Jake fictionalizes his memories into a story with characters who represent different aspects of his identity as a way to help him make his decision. In addition to this narrative, Reid... Read I'm Thinking of Ending Things Summary

In Country, published in 1985, is Bobbie Ann Mason's debut novel. The story takes place in Hopewell, Kentucky, in 1984, 10 years after the end of US involvement in Vietnam. Mason grew up on a dairy farm outside Mayfield, Kentucky, and is thus well-acquainted with the rural South and its people. The classic coming-of-age story follows protagonist Samantha Hughes (known as Sam) as she seeks to discover the truth about her father and his death... Read In Country Summary

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Joanne Greenberg, originally under the pen name Hannah Green, and first published in 1964. The novel centers around the teenage Deborah, who experiences a conflict between The Inner World Versus the Outer Reality, loses her abilities of Connection and Communication temporarily to illness, and demonstrates A Fight for a Life through her time in a mental healthcare facility following a mental health... Read I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Summary

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It’s Kind of a Funny Story was Ned Vizzini’s second Young Adult novel, published by Hyperion in 2006. It is a critically acclaimed Young Adult novel and coming-of-age story that was given a starred review by the American Librarians Association and adapted into a film of the same name (2010).Content Warning: This novel and study guide include topics and themes that may be sensitive for some readers, including suicide, mental health, and references to illicit... Read It's Kind of a Funny Story Summary

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen is a contemporary YA coming-of-age novel published in 2006. The story follows protagonist Annabel Greene, a 16-year-old model who is isolated at school due to a secret trauma that ended her friendship with Sophie. While Annabel tries to forget the past, her older sister, Whitney, deals with anorexia and bulimia. Her eating disorder weighs down the family, and Annabel can’t add another burden on them. When Annabel meets Owen, a... Read Just Listen Summary

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