Mental Illness Literature (the real stuff)

Bored? Nothing to do? Why not read a mental illness work of fiction or nonfiction? Below are some suggestions:

Try Forrest Gump, Of Mice and Men, Like Normal People and Flowers for Algernon to get a handle on developmental disabilities. For depression, read The Bell Jar; Night, Mother (play), Catcher in the Rye and Darkness Visible (autobiographical memoir). To bone up on bipolar illness, you might try Sights Unseen; Sky Writing: A Life Out of the Blue (Jane Pauley’s discussion of her life, which includes bipolar illness) and Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness (Patty Duke’s discussion of her bipolar life) as well as An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of Moods and Madness. A good, but dense biography that discusses schizophrenia is A Brilliant Mind. A great book that examines the connection between madness and racism is The Bluest Eye. Finally, for texts that look at mental illnesses in general read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and/or Girl, Interrupted.