At the Corner of King Street by Mary Ellen Taylor

At the Corner of King Street. Mary Ellen Taylor. Berkley Books Trade Paperback Original. May 2015. 252 pp.  ISBN#: 9780425278253. 

Addie Morgan’s family is cursed!  Her mother and sister suffer from a mental illness which seems to be a bipolar disorder.  The question is whether or not this is truly a family curse or a genetic predisposition for the females in the female to inherit this debilitating disease.  This is a story about how this disease affects the woman afflicted by it and the effect it has on family.  It’s a rollercoaster ride to be sure, and Addie has spent the last seven years escaping from it after she and her sister were in a terrible accident.

Addie has found a new life away from Alexandria, Virginia where she has fallen in love with a man whom she adores and has gone from grape picker to manager of her partner’s winery business, a profession she has also come to love.  All in all her life is presently serene, with occasional memories that she immediately rejects in spite of their haunting quality.

The moments’ bliss is broken, however, when she receives four telephone calls from her sister, Janet.  Unknown to Addie, Janet had disappeared from her husband and son’s life and has now reappeared in dire straits.  It turns out she’s pregnant, about to deliver a baby and has not been taking her medications for a very long time.  Needless to say, she’s psychologically as unstable as possible.  Addie’s Aunt Grace calls for Addie to come to the rescue.

This is the story that will keep any reader riveted to the page as Addie returns to deal with a very ill sister, an Aunt who is feeling her age and more, and a newborn who is possibly the crankiest baby in the planet except when in Addie’s arms. Oh, there’s a family salvage business to be rescued from bankruptcy as well! What about her lover who knows absolutely nothing about her family life? Secrets sometimes do more harm than good, don’t they? Is there truly a secret curse on the Morgan family?

Addie is torn between staying and leaving but the reader must follow the story to see how Addie’s entire world is changing in unpredictable, challenging ways that are so very credible.  This honestly doesn’t read like fiction but more like a memoir about the ravages of mental illness and the growth and sacrifice it demands from all involved.

Outstanding story! Fine contemporary fiction, indeed!

Songs of Three Islands: A Memoir by Millicent Monks

Songs of Three Islands: A Memoir.  Millicent Monks. Easton Studio Press LLC. October 2013. 264 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9781935212447.

Three islands provided homes for generations of the Carnegie family: Cumberland Island off the coast of Florida, Crescent Island near Maine, and the North Island near the Canadian border.  These islands also serve as the metaphors and symbols of the singular world of madness plaguing the women in this notable family.  The islands hold myriad nightmarish voices emerging from the unconscious and merging with the so often harsh reality of the consciousness of these family members.  Millicent Monk wrote this memoir to bring this world to light, to remove the stigma of mental illness, to be a guide for those who have no access to mental health in their illness or for their families.  To discover that what one feels, thinks, says and does that is so irrational and creates such indescribable havoc in families is life-giving in a way that will be pure salvation for those who read this painful, poignant but incredibly important account.

Millicent Monks first offers the world of her mother, Lucy Carnegie, a woman who seemed to slowly go mad. Yes, she heard voices and believed fanatically in germs destroying her children, but she was also the victim of harsh verbal and even physical abuse from her husband who appeared convivial and charming to everyone else.  The reader is not sure which is worse, watching the descent of Lucy into madness to the point where she has to be committed to a hospital or the way the author tries to cope with it, turning off every thought and feeling, knowing that if she thinks or feels too much about it all she will surely go mad herself. But such a solution isn’t a cure at all but only a different road into the world of mental illness that increases with time; underneath the total lack of feeling is indescribable hurt and anger that cannot help but leak out initially and then more forcefully later on. As she puts it so well, “What could be crueler, to live on this earth and not be able to feel loved or love oneself?” Fortunately, Millicent Monks has experienced her own precious years of difficult but healing therapy.

The author also recounts the crises experienced with her own battle with cancer and her daughter’s borderline personality disorder.  It sounds so simple to name a disease but it is very practical the way Ms. Monks describes learning to care and let go or not care at the same time in order not to be consumed by this major problem.

To say more would be to spoil a very special read, a memoir of beautiful descriptions of the islands juxtaposed with the miasma of mental disease threatening to leash its “murderous rage” upon any and all.  What is more important is that this memoir is not just a litany of suffering but a tribute to the strength required and manifested by family members, including the author’s loving husband Bobby, doctors, and other mental health practitioners, as well as friends and other family members.  In a world that often spends far too much time lamenting disasters resulting from mental illness in the news, here is a book of hope, a plea to identify and help those in need of treatment and love before any looming crises emerge.  Wonderful memoir worthy of its brave, sensitive and uniquely special author! Highly recommended!