January First
A Child's descent into madness and her father's struggle to save her
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4.6 • 28 Ratings
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
As a newborn, January sleeps for only 20 minutes at a time. As a one-year-old she speaks in complete sentences. At two she asks about negative numbers. By three she has literally hundreds of imaginary friends. All the signs suggest she's gifted. But when her baby brother Bodhi arrives January's behaviour becomes increasingly violent, her never-ending delusions and hallucinations interspersed with paroxysms of rage that eventually force her parents to live in separate adjoining apartments. This harrowing memoir is the desperate story of Michael's mission to find out what is wrong with his highly intelligent daughter. As he does the rounds of child psychologists, doctors and locked hospital wards, the author provides an unflinchingly honest account of parenting, as well as an indictment of the lack of care for children with severe mental illness. But above all, January First shows the passionate dedication of a father who refuses to give up on his little girl even as her behaviour becomes ever more alien.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this dramatic memoir, Schofield, who teaches writing at California State University, explains the mental illness of his young daughter January. During the two years chronicled in the book (when Jani is aged four to six), he attempts to help his daughter, but finally he and his wife accept that she is not just a precocious, forceful little girl with an unusually high number of imaginary friends. The devastating truth: Jani's imaginary friends are near-constant hallucinations, and her violent outbursts and dangerous impulses are a product of child-onset schizophrenia. Schofield's descriptions of his family's struggles along the frustrating, road to a diagnosis the numerous doctors and ineffectual medications, marital problems, Jani's and the author's suicide attempts are thoughtfully detailed. But Schofield also offers valuable insight for others in similar situations, and ends on a hopeful note to his family's unorthodox approach to dealing with Jani.
