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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Profound insights, depth and heart., August 24, 2008
This review is from: Breaking Spirit Bridge (Paperback)
Breaking Spirit Bridge is heartbreaking, insightful, educational and, uplifting. This third novel by Ruth Perkinson breaks silence to give voice to an unspoken world. Millions of Americans suffer from being Bipolar. Through Perkinson's expertly crafted story, we see and feel the humanity of her main character, the young Piper Leigh Cliff. Perkinson reaches through the stigma attached to mental illness by adeptly bringing us immediately into the heart and mind of the young woman, Piper Leigh Cliff. She writes, "They were very sad when I died. I was very sad when I died. I did not die a natural death. Worse, I died a bipolar death." A refreshing theme is emerging from Ruth Perkinson's first 3 books, Vera's Still Point, Piper's Someday, and now with Breaking Spirit Bridge. Perkinson expresses viewpoints not commonly discussed in mainstream or lesbian fiction.
On the very first page, we begin our journey with Piper as Perkinson drops us right into the thick of things. Perkinson carefully and vividly leads us into the territory of a mind running amuck. "Nestled inside my bony cranium were the ventricles, the tentacles, the veiny channels, the spongy gray rivulets of eggy moist caverns. Ahhh-eggy! They were my caverns and caves of lost and found of stem and root and bark and flesh and of the viscous slick of blood and oil-the center of my bliss, the center of my darkness. This bulbous, gray tumor inside me held tiny loaded guns shooting thoughts like a ra-ta-ta-tah through the filaments, firing a million times a second. It hurt to think because it was like pieces of flint clapping together."
In Breaking Spirit Bridge we are carried into the mind of this young basketball-playing lesbian on a college scholarship. Piper, a budding youth, loveable, talented and outrageous, is grappling with the ups and downs and inevitable drama of a college girl. She deals with lust, love, friendships, team-mates, partying. But Piper also struggles with the painful demons of her mind while she comes to grips with her unfortunate past. Perkinson moves us through turmoil, tragedy, pain and loss to the other side, where new perspectives, change and transformation emerge. One of the gifts that Perkinson elucidates is the resilience of Piper's heart, spirit and, even her mind.
In the early days of lesbian fiction, pioneering authors such as Katherine V. Forrest, Lee Lynch and many other wonderful authors gave lesbians a voice where there had been silence and stigma. Their writings brought forward the ordinary lives of women discovering, acknowledging and celebrating their sexual identity. These novels brought to the forefront women who were questioning the values of their generation and the culture at large. These classic coming out stories explored the healing and freedom that arises when a woman comes to terms with her innermost desires and demons, bucks against the societal norm of stigmas to pursue their very real and personal courageous journey. Perkinson charges beyond another stigma, the one associated with mental illness and reaches through the touching realities of Piper's heart, soul and mind.
Breaking Spirit Bridge is a must read for anyone whose life has been touched with someone who is Bipolar; family, caregivers, friends, psychiatrists, people in the mental health field, and anyone who wants an intelligent and beautifully crafted multi-leveled story with profound insights, depth and heart.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing, Daunting, Inspiring, June 8, 2008
This review is from: Breaking Spirit Bridge (Paperback)
I love this writer. Piper's Someday was an excellent book, and Breaking Spirit Bridge is a challenging one, but it is so worth the read.
Piper Cliff, the twelve-year-old heroine of Piper's Someday, returns to Virginia at age nineteen on a basketball scholarship. And then she loses her mind.
This is a moving and thought-provoking tale of an ascendence into madness, and a subsequent spiraling back to reality.
Piper's spirit breaks as she tries to cross so many bridges, too many, the bridge betwen her and her lost family, the one between her and her negligent, abusive grandfather, the bridge between this world and the next, where those spirits reside that she needs the most.
It is unsettling to be inside Piper's broken mind; uncomfortable.
It is also enlightening, as well as heartbreaking,to see this young person yearn and search for the place, the intersection, the bridge, that will lead her back to all she has lost, and back to herself.
But it is simply breathtaking to read this author's words. It takes real skill and real love for language to achieve this tone that persists throughout this wonderful book, to maintain that certain pitch. Perkinson is so sure-handed, so easy and free with her writing, that she never once sounds a false note in this, Piper's opera.
Breaking Spirit Bridge is a delight to read. This is one of those books that will be treasured, especially by those whose lives and loved ones have been touched by mental disease.
You wouldn't think that there is much humor in a novel with such a serious, sometimes frightening topic. But there is, and secondary chracters are drawn with so much skill and subtlety that the reader comes to know them and to count on them as much as Piper does.
This book is a rare treat, the perfect blend of craft and care. The author's heart and depth and skill just shine in every sentence.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Difficult subject, excellent book, August 14, 2008
This review is from: Breaking Spirit Bridge (Paperback)
Breaking Spirit Bridge returns to the two main characters from Perkinson's earlier book, Piper's Someday. After living in Canada for several years with her guardians, Piper and her three-legged dog Someday return to Virginia so that Piper can attend college on a basketball scholarship. Charlottesville provides an exciting environment for Piper, but not one that can protect her from the trauma of her early years in Richmond. Though she tries to focus on her team, new friends and lover, Piper is haunted by old demons. The memories of her families' deaths and the abuse she suffered afterward are resurrected when Piper is called to Richmond to confront her dying grandfather. Piper begins to experience episodes of losing touch with reality and hearing voices and sounds and there is only Someday, the only solid link to her past and her protector, to keep her grounded. Tragedy beyond Piper's comprehension finally drives her into a mental hospital and she will fight to regain not only her sanity, but her ability to view the future with hope.
This is not an easy book to read in the sense that Piper takes the reader on a difficult journey. Bipolarism is an illness that subjects people to extreme highs and lows and trying to live inside their heads is extremely confusing. It is difficult for them to separate reality from fantasy and trying to follow the train of thought requires the reader to focus more intently than many novels. Anyone who is familiar with these characters from the previous book also may find it difficult to cope with what is happening to Piper. The reader wants so much for this young woman to finally have a happy life that to have her suffer so badly can be painful. This can't have been an easy book for Perkinson to write either. To be able to express these emotions and the depths of this illness in a way that draws the reader in requires knowledge of what bipolarism does beyond what simple research can accomplish.
Breaking Spirit Bridge is well written by Perkinson and presented by Spinsters Ink. This isn't a light romance or an engrossing mystery, but it is a powerful character study. If you're looking for easy entertainment, this isn't it, but, if you're looking for something that is enlightening and a good story, you want to try this book.
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