Marbles

 

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me by Ellen Forney  256 pp.

This is a well done chronicle of Ellen Forney's life after being diagnosed as Bipolar 1. After her diagnosis shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney spent years battling mania and depression with a cocktail of prescription drugs, marijuana, and other drugs. With the help of a caring and conscientious psychiatrist and the support of her pot-smoking mother, she eventually gets her life mostly under control. During this time she also studied the concept of the "crazy artist" and researched Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keefe, William Styron, Sylvia Plath and others. Forney's book is visceral and blatantly honest in showing the highs and lows of her life in a graphic and understandable way.