My Brother's Madness: A Memoir [Paperback]

Paul Pines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2007

Few books nourish the psyche and stir the heart as much as My Brother's Madness."-David Unger, author of Life in the Damn Tropics

My Brother's Madness is based on the author's relationship with his brother-who had a psychotic breakdown in his late forties-and explores the unfolding of two intertwined lives and the nature of delusion. Circumstances lead one brother from juvenile crime on the streets of Brooklyn to war-torn Vietnam, to a fast-track life as a Hollywood publicist and to owning and operating The Tin Palace, one of New York's most legendary jazz clubs, while his brother falls into, and fights his way back from, a delusional psychosis.

My Brother's Madness is part thriller, part exploration that not only describes the causes, character, and journey of mental illness, but also makes sense of it. It is ultimately a story of our own humanity, and answers the question, Am I my brother's keeper?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this gracefully written memoir, poet and novelist (and practicing psychotherapist) Pines narrates his and his younger brother's lives through the matrix of his brother's mental illness. A bright and sensitive child, Claude Pines was damaged by his parents' divorce, an unstable mother and relentless persecution at the hands of his father's monstrous second wife. The story alternates between scenes from the Pines brothers' childhood and Claude's descent into paranoid schizophrenia, an illness that began to assert itself when Claude was a promising medical student and which inexorably drove him into a marginal life. The author deftly handles the complex structure, and the writing compels with rich characters, black humor and clear evocations of locales ranging from an upper-class Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1950s to the drug-blighted Alphabet City of Manhattan's Lower East Side of the 1960s. Paul Pines resists making easy diagnoses and illustrates the complicated relationship between environmental and hereditary causes for a disease like Claude's. While the narrative loses some of its intensity over its last third as Claude slowly remakes himself as spokesperson for his fellow sufferers and Paul settles into a solid middle-class life, it remains engaging throughout. Never descending into easy sentimentality, Pines portrays the family tragedy of mental illness and the bare possibility of redemption we have in this life. (Oct.)
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Review

"One of the most moving, familial, shocking, and ultimately, healing tales." -- E.M. Broner, author of A Weave of Women

"Paul Pines has achieved a story both profoundly personal and universal." -- James Hollis, author of Why Good People Do Bad Things

"This tender and troubling book captures the hilarities, poignant victories, and deep regrets that define our lives." -- Fred Waitzkin, author of Searching for Bobby Fischer

"Uplifting and gut-wrenching...you owe it to yourself to check [it] out." -- Rob Wilson, Associate Producer of the films Comandante and World Trade Center

"With unflinching honesty, My Brother's Madness charts the impossible tangle of loyalty, kindness, bravery and bitter conflict...A remarkable book." -- Joan Silber, author of Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Books; First Edition edition (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931896348
• ISBN-13: 978-1931896344
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Brother's Madness, November 4, 2007

By 

Oscar Everts (Saratoga, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Brother's Madness: A Memoir (Paperback)

Paul Pines bared his life story in "My Brother's Madness" in a way that few would have the courage to expose. When I finished the book, I felt blown away. In reading his work, I found parts of my own life unfolding in ways I never truly understood before. His description of burying himself in books and the reasons for that gave me a common bond with Paul. I always held the belief that I buried myself in books to lock out the dysfunctional world I had to exist in as a child. Now I understand a different meaning: trying to find the relationships I needed but did not exist around me in real life. Instead, I was looking for them in imaginary worlds between two covers. "My Brother's Madness," is a book I had difficulty in putting down. Paul Pines has a special kind of empathy rarely found in today's social order, which flows with every page turned in this truly remarkable work.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Monumental Work, November 26, 2007

By 

Howard Rayfiel (Sarasota, Fl) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Brother's Madness: A Memoir (Paperback)

"My Brother's Madness"
Paul Pines' "My Brother's Madness" is a remarkable portrayal of both the causes and effects of his brother Claude's schizophrenia and of his own never-ending efforts to help him survive it, if not conquer it.
Pines paints a vast panorama of two lives, of their genetic, familial, societal and personal elements, told in the fascinating day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year details of a sometimes rewarding, often frustrating and frequently exasperating ---but always loving---brotherhood. There are many times you want to laugh, yet you know that soon you will have to cry.
Reading the memoir, I was transported into the brothers' family, into the minds and hearts of their parents and of the brothers themselves. I thought their every thought, lived their every experience, felt their every emotion. And, like the author, as much as I learned, I came to know that there is much I will never know.
Which makes me appreciate his efforts even more.
"My Brother's Madness" is a monumental work.

Howard Rayfiel

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Brother's Madness, November 12, 2007

By 

dlwest (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Brother's Madness: A Memoir (Paperback)

In My Brother Madness, Paul Pines shares the story of his brother's Claude's declining mental health. The book's structure allows the reader to get know Paul and Claude by alternating between childhood memories and scenes of Claude as an adult descending into and struggling with mental illness. It doesn't seem as if the childhood memories were shared to analyze or explain the why of Claude's illness. Instead, the reader is left to draw their own conclusions as they come to know Paul and Claude and ties that bind them.
Without protraying himself as hero or savior, Pines shares the guilt, frustration and challenges of caring for his brother. Amazingly, at the same time,he unassumingly inspires the reader to see the ways these disproportionate relationships can positively shape and add value to our lives.
Most importantly, is the fact that this book does truly achieve the old cliché of "putting a real face to mental illness". Something Claude himself reluctantly did. We celebrate Claude's success and feel the pain when he stumbles. After reading My Brother's Madness, you will not soon forget the beauty and the burden loving sometimes brings.