Charlotte Pierce-Baker. (2012). This Fragile Life: A Mother's Story of a Bipolar Son. Chicago Review Press.

Charlotte Pierce-Baker. 2012. This Fragile Life: A Mother's Story of a Bipolar Son. Chicago Review Press.

Charlotte Pierce-Baker, This Fragile Life: A Mother's Story of a Bipolar Son. Chicago Review Press, 2012.

Charlotte Pierce-Baker. This Fragile Life: A Mother's Story of a Bipolar Son. Chicago Review Press, 2012.

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   • bioText: Charlotte Pierce-Baker is a professor of women's studies, gender studies, and English at Vanderbilt University and the author of Surviving the Silence. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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2012-06-01T00:00:00-04:00

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This Fragile Life

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Told in a mother's own words, this is a moving story of a loving African American family that faces the daily crisis of an unpredictable mental disorder. Charlotte Pierce-Baker and her husband did everything right when raising their son Mark: providing emotional support, the best education possible, and the freedom to choose his own path. At age 25, Mark was pursuing a postgraduate degree in film, living with his fiancée, and seemingly in control of his life, so Pierce-Baker never imagined her high-achieving son would wind up handcuffed, barely clothed, dirty, mad, and in jail. Mark's bipolar disorder manifested late and included hospitalizations, calls in the night, pleas for money, jail, lawyers, prescriptions, doctors, alcohol and drug relapses, and continuous disputes about how to live—and not live. This autobiography weaves a fascinating story of mental illness, race, family, the drive of African Americans to succeed, and a mother's love for her son.

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   • source: Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison and The Life of Langston Hughes
   • content: "Vigorously written, brave, and candid . . . a deeply moving, instructive account of embattled lives and loves striving for order in the face of a heartbreaking mental illness."
2. • premium: False
   • source: T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies and French, Vanderbilt University
   • content: "Charlotte Pierce-Baker has cleared the way for an earnest conversation about mental illness and addiction in the private lives of African Americans. This Fragile Life is a compelling read about a mother's love and determination, a father's compassion and support, and a son's road to recovery and wholeness."
3. • premium: True
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   • content:

     April 15, 2012
     An African-American mother's frank account of coping with an adult son with bipolar disorder. Pierce-Baker (Women's and Gender Studies/Vanderbilt Univ.; Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape, 1998), who acknowledges that she was naive about her son Mark's teenage behavioral issues, received a brutal education in bipolar disorder when he was in his 20s. At age 23 he went completely and frighteningly out of control on a family trip. She and her husband were disturbed by his rage and later by his evasions and constant requests for money, but they had no idea he was suffering from mental illness or that he had been self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. When he became paranoid, insisting that extraterrestrials were watching him, they arranged for a psychiatric evaluation. He received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and from then on his life took a steep downward turn. He dropped out of graduate school, his young marriage fell apart and his psychotic rages landed him in jail more than once. To tell her son's story, Pierce-Baker draws on her own journal of that time, on what she learned from her research and, most surprisingly, on her son's writings, including his poetry. It is a disheartening tale of trying to maintain contact with Mark, of bailing him out of jail and of searching desperately for treatment centers that would accept him. A stay at a center offering a 12-step program for alcoholics was a bad match, but he tried another center, worked seriously at rehabilitation and met the woman he would marry. A happy ending is not on offer, however, for Pierce-Baker is realistic about her son's needs and his chances of a fulfilling life. A dark narrative brightened by a devoted mother's commitment and resilience in the face of an only child's strange and terrible illness.

     COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Told in a mother's own words, this is a moving story of a loving African American family that faces the daily crisis of an unpredictable mental disorder. Charlotte Pierce-Baker and her husband did everything right when raising their son Mark: providing emotional support, the best education possible, and the freedom to choose his own path. At age 25, Mark was pursuing a postgraduate degree in film, living with his fiancée, and seemingly in control of his life, so Pierce-Baker never imagined her high-achieving son would wind up handcuffed, barely clothed, dirty, mad, and in jail. Mark's bipolar disorder manifested late and included hospitalizations, calls in the night, pleas for money, jail, lawyers, prescriptions, doctors, alcohol and drug relapses, and continuous disputes about how to live—and not live. This autobiography weaves a fascinating story of mental illness, race, family, the drive of African Americans to succeed, and a mother's love for her son.

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