Customer Reviews

Songs from the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors (American Lives)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased this book after reading Charles Barber's essay published in the Spring 2004 issue of the Bellevue Literary Review http://www.blreview.org/issue_spring2004/.

I was expecting a book to be a collection of stories told by homeless residents in New York City. To my surprise however, the real focus of the book was Charles' personal journey and his own struggle with mental illness for both himself and his childhood friend Henry.

Mr. Barber does a wonderful job of giving us a glimpse into the world of OCD and depression. It truly was a real eye opener for me. I highly recommend this book.

This memoir was moving, almost beyond words. I was poignantly and thankfully reconnected to the reasons I most wanted to be a therapist many years ago. Mr. Barber's efforts have produced a work of distinction for its openness, sincerity. and fearsome humanity. Kathryn J. Mas, Ph.D.

Songs from the Black Chair was awesome. Admittedly, it was more about the author's own struggles than about any of the people he has helped, but that's not a criticism... it is noted simply because the title, which suggests that the book will be about his patients, is misleading.

All the same, it was a story that touched and moved me deeply. As do many primary care providers, I have cared for and treated the mentally ill almost 15 years, and what Barber writes about the need to simply LISTEN - and how the more highly-trained the professional, the less this ability - hits home very hard.

Sadly, psychiatry today is no longer about listening to people; it's about categorizing their symptoms and then trying to abolish these with medication. In fact, the content of a sick person's hallucinations, fears, and dreams is no longer important; what the patient has to say to us, to society, is left uncovered, ignored, or derided. What would Freud and Adler and Frankl say?

Buy it, read it -- be unsettled by it -- and pass it to a friend.

This book is a great read. From the opening scenes of a suicide in a New England farmhouse to the following chapters that tell of youthful adventures and the descent into madness, Charlie Barber knows how carry us through what would have been tortuous material in less skilled hands. This book gives us a personal account of the terrors of mental illness and loss of control over ones thoughts and destiny. The slow path to healing, and the refreshing acknowlegement of how medications brought back his sanity are a welcome departure from the usual rants against the medical industrial complex. I also greatly enjoyed the view of the sleepy college town and the caring yet uncomprehending parents that all of us can identify with, both as teens and as uncomprehending parents. I highly recommend this book.

I dare you to put this book down. There are passages that will sear themselves into your brain pain, I promise. Its two books in one. It is one part memoir, as the author takes you back to his teen years, evoking for us the two great friendships of his adolescence, both of which are fraught with tragedy. The other part is a must-read for anyone interested in homelessness and psychiatry, as the author, having battled mental illness himself, takes a job at a hospital and at a shelter that cater to the homeless and mentally ill. There are incidents in this section that would be hilarious if they were not so harrowing.

This is a beautifully written book, poignant without being self-pitying. As a person with OCD, I appreciate how Barber succinctly and clearly presents the condition.

Perhaps my mistake was reading this memoir immediately subsequent to Susan Jane Gillman's latest offering and Alice Sebold's "Lucky". After all, only a spectacular writer could measure up to those lead-ins.

As others have pointed out, despite the title, Barber spends the majority of this book discussing the suicide of his childhood friend Henry at age 21. He tries to make a connection between Henry's mental illness, his own obsessive-compulsive thoughts and his eventual career in social services, but it is spurious at best. It would be tempting to think he is yet another case of an individual entering the mental health field in an attempt to heal himself, a charge that Barber denies and with which I concur. In truth, I think Barber was like many entitled young men, unable to decide on a direction because he was presented with a limitless world. Only people who live with safety nets would blow off Harvard (how many people can even afford to attend Harvard??) then drop out of a lesser college and be content as a dishwasher. It is only because he knew he could choose a better/more prosperous/more lucrative profession at any time that the 'menial' jobs were somehow rebellious.

Barber leaves his educational background purposely vague. He attended undergrad at Harvard and grad school (I think) at Columbia, but neither was in social work or mental health, as far as I can tell. At one point, he states his choice NOT to further his education in this area, but doesn't specify further. His website is no more helpful, even though he somehow parlayed his (financially pitiful, by his own admission) job at Bellvue into a lecturer position at Harvard, and now a senior executive position at some social service agency. In that respect, I'd really like him to give me some job-hunting tips because that's pretty impressive.

This memoir is neither one cohesive story nor a series of related essays (eg. Three Dog Life), which is its biggest flaw. It's a mismash of ideas, the supporting cast inadequately fleshed out, and the theme(s) obscured or nonexistent. Near the end, the writing becomes even more segmented, the sections smaller and the point less clear. It appears as if he just couldn't decide how and when to end the book. In the final pages, he throws the audience a tidbit - I lived and Henry died - proclaiming it as a theme and expecting the reader not to see his proclaimation as a desperate grasp at completeness.

According to Barber's website, he's taught nonfiction writing at Wesleyan University. I hope, for his students' sake, his instruction was better than demonstrated here. Moments of entertainment and insight do not a compelling memoir make.

Does anyone really need to read more fatuous cries for attention like this? The song being sung here is "Oh, please, I have troubles, pay attention to me." Then the discordant refrain kicks in: "I'm so helpless, buy my book so I can I tell you how helpless I am, and I'll tell you about all the other people who can't cope."
But it's the constant background whining of Barber's chorus that sounds the most unoriginal note, and is so embarassingly out of tune. Do we really need to feel sorry for yet another spoiled little rich kid complaining about how the everyday challenges of life were, and are, and always will be, just so, so, very difficult for sensitive little twits like him? Moreover, does anyone need to listen to immature moans posing as songs? It's likely the "American Idol" tryouts fulfill that particular need, or "empty chasm of emotional isolation," as they intone in the world of pseudo-psychological cliches.

This book is little more than an embarassing catharsis from an author for whom no amount of privileged education succeeded in helping him to grow up. It surely reaffirms my own conviction that mental health professionals should continue in the direction of treating their work more as science and less as the virtually worthless "sympathetic listening" currently being peddaled as "social work."
Mental disease deserves an informed, medical, scientific approach, not inane pop culture "I'm getting OK- you're getting OK" babble from people who can't deal their own demons, much less help others to deal with theirs.
Mr. Barber's approach of sponging off of the troubles of others in order to feel better about his own inadequacies does little to help either side of the exchange. Don't bother reading this book unless you enjoy listening to someone feel sorry for himself. It's written by someone who been feeling sorry for himself his whole life, and he's singing the same old tune.