Book Description

A distinguished man of letters culls wisdom from his encounters with illness and addiction.

From Publishers Weekly

Noted critic, novelist and essayist Sheed recounts his recovery from three major illnesses in this highly personal, torturous, oddly exhilarating chronicle. The first illness, polio, struck in 1945 when he was 14. With unbridled optimism, Sheed struggled for years with a disease that "seemed much more like a vacation from the pains of growing up than an addition to them." The book's centerpiece, his plunge into depression triggered by addiction to sleeping pills and alcohol in his mid-50s, unfolds a nightmare of panic attacks, manic highs, proliferating phobias and suicidal dementia. Sheed found scant relief through a stay in a sanatorium, antidepressants or lithium, on all of which he heaps scorn. His recovery seemed to follow its own logic and inner mechanisms of healing. Diagnosed with cancer in 1991, he underwent operations of the tongue and neck, as well as radiation treatments, a two-year ordeal he describes with wit and gallantry.

From Library Journal

Novelist Reynolds Price (A Whole New Life, LJ 3/1/94) battled spinal cancer; essayist Lucy Grealy (Autobiography of a Face, LJ 7/94) struggled to restore her disfigured face; writer Gretel Ehrlich (A Match to the Heart, Pantheon, 1994) survived being struck by lightning; author Paul West (A Stroke of Genius, LJ 11/1/94) endured a string of illnesses. Critic Sheed (Essays in Disguise, LJ 3/1/90) joins his literary colleagues with this memoir of his recovery from childhood polio, depression caused by pill and alcohol addiction, and cancer. However, his rambling, tortuous musings lack the emotional power of the other works, and the reader often wishes Sheed would get to the point. Saying very little about his bouts with polio and cancer, Sheed focuses mostly on his effort to overcome his addictions; he has no kind words for psychiatrists, 12-step programs, and "Happy Valley" sanatoriums. Still, his saving grace is humor and optimism in the face of disaster. For larger collections.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　-Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"

From Booklist

Three separate illnesses affected Sheed at different periods in his life. The polio he suffered as a child left him with a disability, though Sheed rates his handicap in the "lightweight division." The midlife years were governed in large part by addiction to prescription pills and alcohol, and most recently the novelist and critic survived cancer surgery. Still, the core of this journal revolves around Sheed's descent into alcohol and drug dependency, subsequent battles with depression, and his eventual triumphant emergence from it all. The writing is detailed and arrestingly precise as Sheed flawlessly weaves together recollections of the physical challenges he endured and dealt with head-on. This irrepressibly candid, thought-provoking memoir of recovery engages readers in an unflinching celebration of life.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Alice Joyce