Andrei Codrescu writes about "My Brother's Madness"
This is the best wrestling match I have yet seen between
Sigmund Freud and the Pills, or, between Story and Therapy, or between
Greek myth and the Science of the Brain. The great thing about this
Paul Pines memoir is that both Story and Therapy win: we get a hell of
a great read and come out uplifted by the possibility of redemption,
albeit a chemical, not mythical one. You think your mother is crazy?
Wait till you meet Paul and Claude's. Are all unhappy families
different? You don't know how different until you meet the Pines. This
is also great writing, no doubt about it, so what
you're left with is the itch to write your own life
as simply and classically. All terrific books change reality from
tawdry to interesting, from the urge to hide to the desire for utter
nudity. "My Brother's Madness" does all that, and touches the heart
besides.
Andrei Codrescu, author of "New Orleans Mon Amour"
