God Head [Paperback]

Scott Zwiren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

In God Head, Scott Zwiren boldly and courageously records the terrifying, destructive experience of manic depression. From a promising young college student to mental hospitals to a confined, out-of-control, roller-coaster life on New York City's Upper West Side, Zwiren's narrator traces from the inside the horrors of an existence that swings between numbing depression and exalting highs.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

God Head is an in-the-skin look at madness in a young man's life, a first-person narrative of manic depression and suicidal drives. The narrator is a young college student, driven to desperation by chemical imbalances, who throws himself in front of a subway, then surviving as a paraplegic. The perspective Zwiren accords is so unique, and the logic of the narrator so inaccessible to those outside his experience, that the periodic shortcomings of the story are more than compensated for by the insightful descriptions of madness and depression. It is not sympathy for the author of this partly autobiographical novel that moves the reader, but the power of his point of view.

From Publishers Weekly

The manic-depressive narrator of this edgy novel offers an inside look at mental illness. The one problem is that the reader has to spend so much time inside the mind of a manic depressive to get it. "I am waiting to know what I am because I don't know," begins the narrator, but as the novel progresses (and time recedes), the narrator recalls the time when he concluded he was God, sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son. The details of the narrator's life and what serves as the plot are deeply buried, thereby re-emphasizing the narrator's disconnectedness. Each development turns into a comment on his mental state. After torturing himself over when to tell the woman he is dating that he is God, he finally works up the courage only to blurt out, instead, that he is manic-depressive. At one point, while hospitalized, the narrator lies in bed attempting to strangle himself in his own sheets. At another he muses: "I can't distinguish between a condom and a sock." He believes he can stare down a light bulb and makes plans to create an antigravity suit, jumping from one idea to the next with little warning. The value of Zwiren's novel is in its ability to convey the overwhelming constancy of mental illness through episode after horrifying episode. Where it fails is in finding some way to pull those episodes together into something beyond a character study.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 134 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564781305
• ISBN-13: 978-1564781307
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,788,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating., August 21, 2000

By 

John Greenbaum (NYC, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: God Head (Paperback)

I live in NYC and last week, because I didn't time my move from apartment to apartment well, I stayed at the Hostel on 103rd and CPwest. On saturday night, I was out with several travelers that I had met smoking on the front stoop. Now, as we stepped out of the building, there was a man sitting on the stoop with a wild, untamed look in his eyes...He also had neither his right arm or leg.

We began to speak....rather, He began to speak to us, and mentioned that he was a published writer. I thought "yeah, right...buddy" But, Sure enough. he told me the title of the book (God Head) and his name, and the next day, on my way to my girlfreinds house (whom I had told all about my encounter), I stopped by Barnes & Nobles and found the book. I sat and finished it up in about an hour....its a quick read. But, Its potent. It almost reminds me of the multi-personality book "When Rabbit Howls"....It is a frightning first hand account of the journey into delusion.

Its Fascinating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling, April 5, 2001

By 

"lilyholic" (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: God Head (Paperback)

A must read!

God Head takes you INSIDE the mind of a mentally ill person, ie: the narrator of the story. This is the first book I have read to do this, and it makes for one crazy thrill ride. As you read from first person perspective you get to jump around with the craziness of the main character's head. Every loop and twist he takes you take, and every time he rambles insanely off track you follow.

Although it may sound strange, it isn't hard to get into at all. Honestly, I didn't put the book down from start to finish, it was excellent! It will have you totally absorbed and leave you with a refreshed and satisfied feeling of higher understanding.

If you haven't already added this book to your shopping cart... do so now!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, frightening journey into manic-depressive mind, December 31, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: God Head (Paperback)

God Head is incredible in its ability to take the reader inside the thought processes of an insane mind. You feel the jolting, careening roller-coaster ride of manic thought, being swept along with no means of controlling the journey. The depressive aspect is agonizing in its weightiness and futility; you sense the awful inability to change this part of the journey as well. This novel offers profound insight in its portrayal of the manic-depressive, a very worthwhile read if you are curious about the mind in all of its manifestations