Hurry Down Sunshine
A Father's Memoir of Love and Madness
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4.3 • 44 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“Hurry Down Sunshine is about tenacity and tenderness...but mostly it’s about love.” —OPRAH WINFREY
AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH PICK
This international bestseller is an extraordinary family story and an exceptionally powerful memoir about coping withbipolar disorder, now with a new afterword for the ten-year anniversary edition.
Michael Greenberg recounts in vivid detail the remarkable summer when, at the age of fifteen, his daughter was struck mad. It begins with Sally's sudden visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's sweltering summer. It is a tale of a family broken open, then painstakingly, movingly stitched together again.
Greenberg's unforgettable cast of characters includes an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary aspirations. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine is essential reading in the literature of affliction with such classics as Girl, Interrupted and An Unquiet Mind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Greenberg, a columnist for London's Times Literary Supplement, was living in Greenwich Village in 1996 when his 15-year-old daughter, Sally, suddenly became manic, importuning strangers and ranting in the streets about her newfound cosmic wisdom. She was a danger to herself and others, so her father and stepmother had her committed to a psychiatric facility. Greenberg was no stranger to mental illness; he'd been caring for his dysfunctional brother most of their adult lives. Still, Sally was so brilliant, so caring, he couldn't bear the thought of her ending up like his brother. During the 24 long days Sally spent in the hospital, Greenberg learned to cope. He watched a Hasidic family visiting with their mentally ill young man. He pondered his ex-wife going to cuddle with Sally, as if she were still a little girl. He listened to his mother explain her troubled marriage and the subsequent mental illness of his brother. He wondered at his present wife's resilience. After Sally's discharge, questions of how they would adjust to their new lives were complicated in very different ways. In this well-written and sincere memoir, Greenberg proves to be a caring man trying to find his way through the minefield of a loved one's madness.
Customer Reviews
Hurry Down Sunshine
A very moving depiction of the writer's family's experience with mental illness.
Simply magnificent
A magnificent read. Greenberg’s vivid descriptions of his journey alongside his daughter into the depths of her psychotic brain shed light onto a very mysterious underworld. His writing is brilliantly clear, wry, and humble. I couldn’t put it down. Bravo, Mr. Greenberg.
I had to keep reading...
Michael Greenberg's account of his role in the startling first summer of his daughter's mental illness reads like a novel whose end you can't wait to reach, but fear to reach at the same time.