Description

The Lily Pond
A Memoir of Madness, Memory, Myth and Metamorphosis
Mike Barnes

The Lily Pond is a memoir that explores searchingly the author's thirty-plus years of living with bipolar disorder. It chronicles unflinchingly the destructiveness of an illness that infiltrates thinking, feeling and acting in ways that change the very fabric of identity, of the life story one is telling oneself; but it is equally searching in its exploration of the psyche's resources in healing and reknitting that story. Art is an essential strand in this weave: as balm, as goad, as source of potent symbol and pattern. By turns harrowing, reflective, speculative and, ultimately, hopeful, The Lily Pond spirals through four decades, relating an ongoing struggle from changing vantage points: as a patient, in and out of hospital; as a family member; as a participant in psychotherapy; and as a caregiver to a loved one during her own mental illness. As the narrative evolves this ever-widening and deepening perspective, the largest and most important arc of The Lily Pond is revealed: the journey from the darkness of unconscious suffering to the daylight of mindful recovery.

“His lucid prose brings to mind Poe's Gothic horror, Hunter S. Thompson's strangeness (without the drug-craze), William Burroughs's ellipsis (without the disintegration). But it is perhaps closest to Roald Dahl's intimate exploration of human oddity and use of surprise in Switch Bitch.” – The Globe & Mail

Mike Barnes in the author of six previous books: the novels Catalogue Raisonne and The Syllabus, the short fiction collections Aquarium – winner of the 1999 Danuta Gleed Award – and Contrary Angel, and the poetry collections Calm Jazz Sea and a thaw foretold. Born in Minnneapolis, a joint U.S.-Canadian citizen, Mike Barnes lives and writes in Toronto.

Memoir – Psychology
September World First Publication 5.5 x 8.5 pages
Trade paper 978-1-897231-48-7 19.95