The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother's Suicide

Gayle Brandeis's mother Arlene had always been self-centered and eccentric, but as she grew older she fell into the grip of a full-blown delusional disorder. Her hypochondria and paranoia culminated in an successful suicide attempt days after her daughter gave birth to a late-in-life baby, almost as if she were upstaging her. Brandeis writes with compassion about her mother's mental illness and its impact on her as a daughter, especially during the postpartum period when she was simultaneously mourning her mother and welcoming her son. Included also are Brandeis's own teenage experiences with faking illness in order to claim the role of "the sick girl".

Brandeis dwells a little too long on the details of her at-home water birth, but show more other than that, this is a moving look at a fraught mother-daughter relationship.

Please note that my LibraryThing Early Reviewers copy has not arrived as of the date of this review. I obtained this book from another source. show less

I never received my copy of this book from LibraryThing; I ended up reading a copy from the actual library. It’s a good story of a family’s struggle to understand and deal with health issues both real and illusory; it is not about suicide as much as it is about life as a family. I read an upcoming memoir called _The Bridesmaid’s Daughter_ not long after reading this one, and these would be interesting as companion memoirs...they are very different stories, but they deal with related issues overall.

I almost did not share a review of this book. Because of my reference point as a psychologist and psychotherapist, I likely did not experience this read like most others. Its a sad story but I found myself mostly being frustrated. Enough said.

"Gayle Brandeis is the author of 'Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write' and the novels 'The Book of Dead Birds, which won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement, 'Self Storage,' 'Delta Girls,' and 'My Life with the Lincolns,' which received a Silver Nautilus Book Award, as well as a collection of poetry. . ." Ariel Gore, author of 'The End of Eve', said of 'The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide.' “[This book] is Gayle Brandeis’s masterpiece, and it reads with the urgency of a literary thriller. Here Brandeis delves into the luminal place—between life and death, between psychosis and sanity, between love and guilt—with a poet’s heart and a detective’s courage. If you’ve ever show more watched someone you love unravel, or if you’ve asked the echoing ‘why?’ of suicide, you’ll find home in these pages. show less