Poisoned Love [Paperback]

Melanie Cane M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 2009

In 1993, Jimmy Breslin wrote a front page story for New York Newsday about Melanie Cane, a troubled young psychiatrist who ''let love take her too far.'' Fifteen years later, Melanie tells her side of the story in Poisoned Love, a heartbreaking and staggering account of her spiral into the depths of mental illness and what she did under the guise of love.

With extraordinary courage, Melanie provides intimate access to the thoughts and feelings leading to her desperate act, as well as an unvarnished account of her subsequent psychiatric treatment and the legal and social consequences of her crime.

Melanie's steady process toward recovery involves an emerging understanding of the relationship between her various diagnoses and her attachment to an abusive and mentally ill father.

Her story teaches people about survival and success in the face of severe mental illness.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Melanie Cane holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wellesley College, a Medical Degree and a Master's in Public Health from New York Medical College. She also completed two years of a residency program in psychiatry at Cornell Medical Center-Westchester Division. Dr. Cane fulfilled her pre-medical requirements at Harvard University and co-authored several articles in the field of mental health while working as a research assistant at Mclean Hospital prior to attending medical school. She received highest honors on her master's thesis, Stress, Coping, and Adjustment in HIV-infected Adolescents.
Melanie grew up in Scarsdale, NY with a father who suffered from severe bipolar disorder. She has recovered from Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Depression, and Anorexia.
Melanie works as a photographer and writer for a local paper and has a pet sitting business as well. She presently resides in Rye, New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Bascom Hill Publishing Group (January 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193509811X
• ISBN-13: 978-1935098119
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Despicable -- this is not love, and Melanie Cane is not the victim here, March 1, 2009

By 

Tough Cookie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poisoned Love (Paperback)

The operative word is 'poison,' not 'love.' Whatever Dr. Cane's emotional issues, as soon as she goes looking for 'a clear, tasteless, odorless liquid" to make her ex-boyfriend "sick enough to realize he wants me back," she loses all claim on our sympathy--especially when she recalls watching him grow weaker and weaker (and thus more dependent on her) as one of the best weeks of her life. She even resents that his real friends "had to go and ruin everything" by taking the gravely ill man to the hospital, where he undergoes a dangerous brain biopsy, yet still doesn't want to marry her after everything she's done for him (!).

In her narcissism, Melanie expects us to feel her pain as she loses her boyfriend, goes to jail, and is unable (whew) to get her medical license reinstated--but what about the pain of the man she nearly killed? There's a sickening air of self-pity throughout this book; "poor me," it seems to be saying, "look at how much I loved and lost." For all her education and treatment (ironically, Melanie was a psychiatric resident at a prestigious hospital when she hatched her scheme), she still seems delusional and self-serving, and her insights about her behavior as poisoned as her notions about love.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poisoned Love, February 12, 2009

By 

Yvonne Phillips FSII (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poisoned Love (Paperback)

Melanie Cane, M.D. tells a story that will absolutely astound you! Her story is one you "sort" of hear about, but never know for sure what happened! You will not be able to let this book sit by your night stand very long.

Her story starts out with cancer and spirals downward from there. You just wonder how she is still alive and well today. Also how she was able to write a book that describes all of her life in detail. It will make you sit up and go, oh my gosh! You can feel her anguish as she describes in detail her conversations and her treatment during those awful years.

The strange part about this story is, that you can see what the consequences of her actions are, but you still hope and pray that it doesn't go there. You can almost understand her reasoning of what she did, even though you know that she was not operating in a healthy body.

Mental Illness is around all of us and to hear her tell her own story day by day, your compassion just rises to the surface. I have to give her 5 Stars, she deserves it, as well as the book deserves that kind of accolade.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, February 21, 2009

By 

Lovely Reader (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poisoned Love (Paperback)

I received this book only a few days ago, courtesy of a very nice woman at Bascom Hill Publishing Group. I had known the gist of the story (woman goes crazy, poisons her ex, gets committed, gets better), but I was unprepared for how intimate and tragic the telling of that story was going to be. Suffering from depression myself, I am unfortunately aware of the difficulties of living with a mental illness, but the heartrending pain that Melanie suffered as her rationality crumbled around her is far beyond anything like a run-of-the-mill mental illness. She had everything stacked against her: a severely mentally ill and abusive father, a resentful and angry mother, and an emotionally immature and abusive boyfriend. The rapidity and the extent of her recovery is staggering. She came out of her experience a better and more well-adjusted person than she had been before her breakdown. To those that would judge her (and have judged her), I would ask this: how would you have coped with the immense betrayal, pain, and abuse that Melanie went through? To retreat from reality seemed to be the only thing her mind would allow her to do.

At times, the writing does seem a bit amateurish, and at times the author's descriptions of her illness and conversations with her doctors struck me as something from a psychiatry textbook...but then again, how else does a medical doctor explain her illness? The flow of the story also seemed stilted to me. Details were left out and referred to later as something that the reader should have known, and memory flashbacks were sometimes inserted into the story at awkward times. But all in all, this book is an engaging read, as Melanie allows her readers a most intimate glimpse into her pain and crumbling sanity. I would recommend this to everyone, as everyone can benefit from getting to know this highly intelligent and courageous woman.