In 1949, the organization now known as Mental Health America named May Mental Health Awareness Month, but mental health awareness is appropriate for all seasons. "Mental health" as a concept can be seen as coterminous with the human experience, and yet it also suggests distinct genres of suffering that persist in our families and our society. These pieces touch on the implications of mental illness for crime and punishment in the US, the challenges of crafting narratives that do justice to the realities of mental illness, and the literary triumphs when authors illuminate what Esmé Weijun Wang calls in her essay collection The Collected Schizophrenias "the shaggy, sharp-toothed thing." — LARB Editorial
Stories, Stigma, and the "Shaggy, Sharp-Toothed Thing"
A Season Underground: "Russian Doll" and Mental Illness
Peli Grietzer considers the rallying murmur of Russian Doll's revolutionary representation of mental illness.
The Shaggy, Sharp-Toothed Thing
Emily LaBarge reviews Esmé Weijun Wang’s “The Collected Schizophrenias.”
Fractured Origins in Esmé Weijun Wang’s “The Collected Schizophrenias”
Katharine Coldiron on Esmé Weijun Wang’s prize-winning essay collection, “The Collected Schizophrenias," which joins the schizophrenia memoir canon.
M Is for Mother
Kate Martin Rowe reads Kim Adrian's glossary-memoir of her mother's mental illness, "The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet."
Asylum, Again: Why We Need to Stop Punishing the Mentally Ill
As more and more prisons become warehouses for the mentally ill, is it time to go back to the asylum? Taylor Beck explores, via Alisa Roth's "Insane."
Mental Health, Art, and Advocacy: Talking with Gayle Brandeis
Krista Lukas interviews Gayle Brandeis about memoirs of suicide loss, including her own, "The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother's Suicide."
“Therapy Is an Imitation of Writing”: An Interview with Daniel Raeburn
Daniel Raeburn talks about his beautifully composed book "Vessels: A Love Story," a haunting memoir of a marriage tested by tragedy.
Multiculturalism and Mental Illness: An Interview With Mira T. Lee
Eleanor J. Bader interviews debut novelist Mira T. Lee about mental illness and multiculturalism in “Everything Here Is Beautiful.”
“It’s the Disease, Not the Individual”: A Talk with Zack McDermott
Zack McDermott, author of the memoir "Gorilla and the Bird," talks with LARB about mental illness and criminal justice reform.
Moody Genes
Taylor Beck reads Stephen P. Hinshaw's "Another Kind of Madness" through the lens of his own history with mental illness.
The Limits of Metaphor: Jeannie Vanasco’s “The Glass Eye”
Andrew Schenker appreciates “The Glass Eye” by Jeannie Vanasco, a memoir that explores the search for meaning and the limits of metaphor.
Wade in the Water: An Interview with Monica A. Coleman
Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn talks to Monica A. Coleman about her faith in God, moving to Los Angeles, and her memoir, "Bipolar Faith."
The Nature of the Beast
Lisa Fetchko on Daphne Merkin's memoir "This Close to Happy" and the literary difficulties of capturing the minutiae of depression.
Flowers and All: Rockhaven Sanitarium and Women’s Mental Health
Tiffancy Hearsey witnesses the "arrested decay" of Rockhaven Sanitarium in Glendale and reconsiders our approach to women’s mental health.
Nothing Romantic About It
"What does it mean to be a mentally ill artist?" Lauren O'Neal on Ricardo Cavolo and Scott McClanahan's "The Incantations of Daniel Johnston".
Precision Psychiatry: Hype or Promise?
What if doctors could treat diseases based on the specific genes, enzymes, and biochemistry of a patient?
The Syntax of Anxiety: Unica Zürn’s Novella
Unica Zürn's novella "The Trumpets of Jericho" takes place in a certain limbo, at the torn seam between verisimilitude and disbelief.
Wired for Madness? A History
Madness in civilization, or so-called "degeneracy," can be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on the time period and who's in charge of categories.
Empathy and the Existential in Mental Illness and Psychotherapy
Lee Gutkind's "Same Time Next Week" and Irvin D. Yalom's "Creatures of a Day" represent two takes on the state of psychotherapy and mental illness today.
When Mother Is Mad
Parents with mental illness in YA fiction
'I am what I am attached to': On Bruno Latour’s 'Inquiry into the Modes of Existence'
A Revelatory Requiem for a Mentally Ill Friend
Sarah Manguso's revelatory book "The Guardians" uses fractured prose to render the messy, lifelong process of grieving suicide loss.
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201905RussianDoll.Hero_.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201902thecollectedschizophrenias.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201811thetwentyseventhletterofthealphabet.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201810insane.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201804LukasBrandeis.png)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201802VanascoRaeburn.png)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201712ParkerMcDermott.png)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201711anotherkindofmadness.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201710theglasseye.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201703LittlejohnColeman2.png)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201702thisclosetohappy.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201609Hearsey-Rockhaven-Photo-5.jpg)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201608incantations.png)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201603Precision-Psychiatry.png)
:quality(75)/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.lareviewofbooks.org%2Fuploads%2F201409This-is-How-I-Find-Her1.jpg)