72 Hour Hold (Hardcover)

by Bebe Moore Campbell (Author)
Key Phrases: locked facility, Crazy Man, Weitz Center, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This powerful story of a mother trying to cope with her daughter's bipolar disorder reads at times like a heightened procedural. Keri, the owner of an upscale L.A. resale clothing shop, is hopeful as daughter Trina celebrates her 18th birthday and begins a successful-seeming new treatment. But as Trina relapses into mania, both their worlds spiral out of control. An ex-husband who refuses to believe their daughter is really sick, the stigmas of mental illness in the black community, a byzantine medico-insurance system—all make Keri increasingly desperate as Trina deteriorates (requiring, repeatedly, a "72 hour hold" in the hospital against her will). The ins and outs of working the mental health system take up a lot of space, but Moore Campbell is terrific at describing the different emotional gradations produced by each new circle of hell. There's a lesbian subplot, and a radical (and expensive) group that offers treatment off the grid may hold promise. The author of a well-reviewed children's book on how to cope with a parent's mental illness, Moore Campbell (What You Owe Me) is on familiar ground; she gives Keri's actions and decisions compelling depth and detail, and makes Trina's illness palpable. While this feels at times like a mission-driven book, it draws on all of Moore Campbell's nuance and style.
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From Scientific American
Hell, being black is hard enough.... Please don't add crazy. So writes Bebe Moore Campbell in her compelling new novel that confronts two taboo subjects in the African American community: mental disorder and homosexuality. The book is named for the three-day maximum period that a mentally ill adult can be legally held in a public health facility if she demonstrates a danger to herself or others. The novel tells the story of Keri Whitmore, a successful black businesswoman struggling to care for a teenage daughter with bipolar disorder, which causes radical mood swings between mania and depression. The fictional prose is not meant to offer an inside look at brain disease. Rather it presents a brutally honest and devastating account of a mother's love and the desperate degree to which she will go to rescue her child from mental illness. In doing so, Campbell exposes the woeful inadequacies of our current public health care system in treating such patients and introduces the novel's greatest value: its insight into the challenges faced by people who must care for such loved ones. Nevertheless, this noble effort is undermined when Campbell invokes slavery to convey the horrors of mental illness. Though poignant, the comparison seems forced, relying on overwrought passages about whipping posts and slave auctions. The metaphor clouds the novel's purpose, especially since the author seems to decide, by the end, that the best way to deal with a family member's brain disease is through acceptance rather than emancipation. The same cannot be said of slavery. Campbell also draws parallels between brain disorders and homosexuality to suggest that both issues must be dealt with more openly. Her point that both are unfairly stigmatized is overshadowed by the unsavory implication that being gay is a malady somehow akin to mental illness. The novel offers important lessons to family members about caring for the self and seeking the support of others. And yet Campbell's main character is overly ambitious, much like the book itself. Keri seems more like a wonder-mom with an endless supply of time, energy and patience than a desperate mother on the brink of collapse. She not only cares for her manic daughter but runs her thriving business, strokes the ego of her workaholic exhusband, counsels her boyfriend's gay son and advises a drug-addicted ex-prostitute. Then again, Campbell has taken on ambitious aims, which she accomplishes with some success despite the novel's distractions.

Jeanne Hamming

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (June 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400040744
• ISBN-13: 978-1400040742
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #474,680 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loving A Stranger, July 2, 2005

By	Phyllis Rhodes (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Bebe Moore Campbell's latest novel, 72 Hour Hold, focuses on a
mother's frustration and desperation when dealing with a daughter suffering from mental illness. Earlier in the year, divorcee Kira Whitmore's beautiful daughter, Trina, was a high school senior and National Merit Scholar with a bright future ahead of her - starting with plans to study at Brown University in the fall. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, Trina changes and Kira innocently ignores a host of symptoms and warning signs. Trina's behavior eventually becomes more violent and erratic, spurring frantic 911 calls and numerous hospital visits that finally yield a diagnosis: bipolar (manic depressive)disorder. Their lives are literally turned upside down when Trina refuses to take the prescribed medication (mood stabilizers and psychotic drugs) and resorts to alcohol and marijuana use which only exacerbate and amplify her self-destructive behavior.

Like the good mother she is, Kira seeks and prays for a remedy or a cure, only to be told repeatedly that there is none, only lifelong treatment via prescription drugs. A weary attending physician does not offer much hope when he informs her with a look of pure pity that "mental illnesses can transform people. You may not be able to get back the daughter you had. You may, as the saying goes, have to learn to love a stranger," and wishes her good luck as a solitary comfort. She rebukes the advice and frantically learns all she can about the disease and its treatment via support groups and her own research with the hope that a breakthrough is on the horizon.

As hard as Kira tries to move in a positive direction, Trina's condition worsens. Her behavior modulates like an unsynchronized pendulum, from depression to mania with little to no warning. Kira reluctantly resorts to law enforcement to protect Trina from herself (often the subject of the attacks)and others. The rules are simple - if Trina is deemed a danger to society; she can be held against her will in a hospital's mental ward for the requisite "72 hour hold." Each time, Kira struggles desperately for an extension, but Trina "acts normal enough" and the requests are denied repeatedly - 72 hours is not, and never will be, enough time for the medication to stabilize the now rebellious, paranoid, legalized 18 year old adult Trina who hates her mother for wanting to "lock her up," thus the spiral into madness begins anew at each release.

At one point in the story, Kira is told, "when you love someone who has a mental illness, there comes a point at which you must detach in order to preserve your own life." But how can a mother ever detach from her child? Desperate times call for desperate measures and, Kira, having exhausted all legal avenues, resorts to an "intervention" which mirrors a covert kidnapping operation that has some disastrous and yet surprising results.

Campbell's story, albeit fictional, is an intense and compassionate testament that patients' rights often clash with what is best for the mentally ill. She paints a very realistic portrait of both the victims and the suffering loved ones charged with their care. Trina's descent into madness is realistic and painful to watch. The medical and legal system's bureaucracy is stifling. Kira's dilemma is heart-tugging. Campbell's skill as a writer is evident with an ingenious thread which portrays mental illness as a form of slavery and blends in imagery and metaphors from the African American slavery experience - references to shackles, plantation life and the Middle Passage. In addition, her usage of the Underground Railroad as a means of escape to freedom while looking toward the North Star as a symbol for hope and guidance was absolutely brilliant.

Campbell's work brings forth awareness because it holds a mirror to society's sometimes judgmental and condemning face. Throughout the novel, we see unkind strangers, impatient friends, and judgmental neighbors who spew unwanted, mean-spirited advice and cite unwarranted rationale for Trina's outcome, oftentimes blaming Kira for not spending enough time with her child when she was younger and other nonsensical causes. She also educates by sharing that a lot of mental diseases are hereditary/genetic and can be triggered by alcohol, drugs, or traumatic events. She challenges cultural boundaries by emphasizing how mental illness is a low priority in many ethnic communities, particularly African American, regardless of how prevalent and obvious it is within the communities. This is a wonderful, enlightening body of work told with the utmost tenderness and sensitivity.

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub, The Nubian Circle Book Club

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "She sang as if she knew me, in all my dark despair", September 13, 2006

By	Frank J. Konopka (Shamokin, PA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I realize that this is a novel, but as Neil Diamond once sang "Except for the names and a few other changes, you could talk about me, the story's the same one". Having a family member who suffers from manic depression, I've lived through many of the episodes related in this book. There are the lies, the anger, the disappearances, and all of the other things that plague the narrator. One thing also remains the same: the love for the ill person can never be taken away, even though helping him or her causes terrible suffering and stress on the caretakers. It's not a perfect book by any means, but should be must reading for the caregivers of any mentally ill family member. They will see themselves in its pages, as I did.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OUTSTANDING!, July 15, 2006

By	HonnyBrown (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

I don't even know where to start with this book. It's a day to day story of a divorced mother who is trying to help her daughter deal with a mental illness. On top of that, she is African-American. Our culture typically shuns the mentally ill.

This book was written so well, that I started reading more on mental illness, since it does not affect me directly. I have read this book twice, and it was new each time.

The African American community (and probably the American community) needs to read this book to see what it's like to deal with an illness first hand, and everything that goes with it (the drugs, the way the government works, the support groups, what it does to a family).

Thank you, Ms. Campbell!