The Lily Pond is a memoir that explores searchingly the author's thirty-plus years of living with bipolar disorder. It chronicles unflinchingly the destructiveness of an illness that infiltrates thinking, feeling, and acting in ways that change the very fabric of identity, of the life story one is telling oneself; but it is equally searching in its exploration of the psyche's resources in healing and reknitting that story. Art is an essential strand in this weave: as balm, as goad, as source of potent symbol and pattern. By turns harrowing, reflective, speculative, and ultimately hopeful, "The Lily Pond "spirals through four decades, relating an ongoing struggle from changing vantage points: as a patient, in and out of a hospital; as a family member; as a participant in psychotherapy; and as a caregiver to a loved one during her own mental illness. As the narrative evolves this ever-widening and deepening perspective, the largest and most important arc of "The Lily Pond" is revealed: the journey from the darkness of unconscious suffering to the daylight of mindful recovery --- from the publisher Reviews: "...fiercely alive, marked by a sharp, unerring eye for detail and a wonderful way with metaphors."--Toronto Star "His lucid prose brings to mind Poe's Gothic horror, Hunter S. Thompson's strangeness (without the drug-craze), and William Burroughs' ellipsis (without the disintegration). But it is perhaps closest to Roald Dahl's intimate exploration of human oddity and use of surprise in Switch Bitch." --Globe and Mail "Barnes writes like a contrary angel, dazzling with his deft craft and smacking readers in the gut with concentrated and perceptive subjects."--Malahat Review |
