|
Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family's Schizophrenia | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick Tracey
Publisher: Bantam
Category: EBooks
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $8.96 (47%)
Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 10082
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8980092
ASIN: B001EL6S0U
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In this powerful, sometimes harrowing, deeply felt story, Patrick Tracey journeys to Ireland to track the origin and solve the mystery of his Irish-American family's multigenerational struggle with schizophrenia. For most Irish Americans, a trip to Ireland is often an occasion to revisit their family's roots. But for Patrick Tracey, the lure of his ancestral home is a much more powerful need: part pilgrimage, part investigation to confront the genealogical mystery of schizophrenia-a disease that had claimed a great-great-great-grandmother, a grandmother, an uncle, and, most recently, two sisters. As long as Tracey could remember, schizophrenia ran on his mother's side, seldom spoken of outright but impossible to ignore. Devastated by the emotional toll the disease had already taken on his family, terrified of passing it on to any children he might have, and inspired by the recent discovery of the first genetic link to schizophrenia, Tracey followed his genealogical trail from Boston to Ireland's county Roscommon, home of his oldest-known schizophrenic ancestor. In a renovated camper, Tracey crossed the Emerald Isle to investigate the country that, until the 1960s, had the world's highest rate of institutionalization for mental illness, following clues and separating fact from fiction in the legendary relationship the Irish have had with madness. Tracey's path leads from fairy mounds and ancient caverns still shrouded in superstition to old pubs whose colorful inhabitants are a treasure trove of local lore. He visits the massive and grim asylum where his famine starved ancestors may have lived. And he interviews the Irish research team that first cracked the schizophrenic code to learn how much-and how little-we know about this often misunderstood disease. Filled with history, science, and lore, Stalking Irish Madness is an unforgettable chronicle of one man's attempt to make sense of his family's past and to find hope for the future of schizophrenic patients.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
Stalking Irish Madness: 'a beautiful gift' November 30, 2008
W. P. Keeler (Cape Elizabeth, Maine)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I didn't so much read as devour Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for The Roots of my Family's Schizophrenia, in which writer Patrick Tracey travels to Ireland to unravel the origins of his Irish-American family's multi-generational struggle with schizophrenia. Two of Tracey's sisters, his uncle, his grandmother, and a grandmother several generations back have been victims of the brain disorder.
Tracey had the discipline to hold back the drama and fireworks that many writers would have been tempted to include in a book about schizophrenia. His love for his sisters is so palpable and sweet that it makes what happens to them stand out starkly and heartbreakingly in a way that histrionics could not.
The structure--part memoir, part history, part Travels with Charley, part detective nonfiction--and Tracey's insight, honesty, and sense of humor make the book a page-turner. He writes easily about the dry stuff, which all too often writers can make stultifying: history, medicine, mythology. Tracey's journey through Ireland past and present is a worthy read unto itself.
Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for The Roots of my Family's Schizophrenia will share space on my bookshelf with others that have changed my way of looking at the human brain and helped me understand a little about what it's like to live with mental illness or mental differences: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jameson, about bipolar disorder; and Temple Grandin's Thinking in Pictures, about autism, among them.
The book is a beautiful gift to Tracey's sisters; to families whose pasts, presents, and futures have been and will be marked by schizophrenia; to all of us who have struggled or have loved anyone who has; and to all who are seeking understanding about ourselves and about love.
 Compelling story, but deficient genealogy November 27, 2008
Sharon Carmack (Salt Lake City, Utah)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
American journalist Patrick Tracey sets out to trace the origins of his family's multigenerational struggle with schizophrenia. The disease runs on his mother's Irish side, claiming a third great-grandmother, a grandmother, an uncle, and two of his four sisters. Stalking Irish Madness interweaves his personal quest with history, science, and lore, as he hunts for answers in Ireland.
Tracey has a fascinating story to tell and does so with engaging prose. He sheds light on this debilitating familial disease. For those aspects, he earns a five-star rating. The publisher is to be commended for including an index, something that is often not a consideration in a commercially published family history memoir. A drop-line chart, showing the descent from the author's third great-grandmother, Mary Egan, to the author would have been a welcomed visual addition.
But where the book falls short, surprisingly, is in the genealogical research, which is why this book receives only a three-star rating. Other than to cite family lore, Tracey never provides the generational links or names from his grandmother to his third great-grandmother. "From what little my grandfather said, and the small bits my mother added, it all started with the Egans.... I have a name Mary Egan" (p. 70). From this same family lore he has a place, Kiltoom Parish in Co. Roscommon, and for Tracey that's apparently enough for him to begin his eighteen-week search in Ireland. There's no indication that the author did research in American sources to confirm the generations between his grandmother and third great-grandmother to ensure the information handed down was accurate and sufficient to make the trip worthwhile.
On page 236, the author references a passenger list of the ship Anglo-Saxon, showing a John Egan and "Mrs. Egan" arriving in Boston in 1847. Since he does not detail what, if any, additional searches he did in American records, it leaves the genealogical reader wondering how he concluded that this John and "Mrs. Egan" are his ancestors. Other than ages, there's no further identifying information, and curiously, the "country to which they severally belong" is England, not Ireland, as other passengers on that list were recorded.
Tracey spends much of his time searching Egans in Ireland, rather than his third great-grandmother's birth family for genetic links to schizophrenia. His research in Irish parish records evidently dead ends when he can't find any children born and baptized to a Mary and John Egan before they emigrated, so he's unable to determine her maiden name.
The author claims he is "not enamored of genealogy" (p. 126), which is understandable when a person not well versed in genealogical methods and sources quickly feels the agony of defeat from not knowing how to conduct sound research. When he finds a Mary Gallagher Egan in the parish baptism records (he gives no husband's name), and she is the mother of Brigid, baptized in 1835, he states, "Since my Mary would've been twelve or thirteen [based on the age of "Mrs. Egan" in the passenger list], it's more likely Brigid was a sister, or a cousin." He offers no foundation for this speculation, and apparently does not comprehend that Brigid is an Egan. Unless Mary's maiden name is also Egan, these two aren't likely to be sisters. Then the author adds, "There was no Brigid listed on the passenger records of the ship that carried John and Mary to America. Whoever she was, I suspect she may have perished in the journey out of Ireland" (p. 125-26). Again, there's no foundation for the speculation. Genealogists, of course, realize that if a Brigid did board the same ship with John and "Mrs. Egan," she would have been recorded on the passenger manifest, and if she did perish on the journey, more than likely, her death would have been noted on the list, too.
Granted, most readers probably aren't as interested in the details of Tracey's search as genealogists would be. But the lack of genealogical facts makes us wonder whether he's even tracing the right ancestors, in either Ireland or America. For a book that focuses on family history and genetic links, it's astonishing and disappointing that the author, a journalist, apparently did not attempt even the basics of U.S. genealogical research. He falls into the typical novice trap of eagerly hurdling the ocean without methodically documenting each generation and securing enough identifying information to link immigrant ancestors to their place of origin.
There's no denying that the most compelling aspect of the book is the stories of his afflicted two sisters. Just watching them become stricken with schizophrenia on these pages is heart wrenching enough; one can only imagine the anguish the author and his family must have felt to witness it in person. It's not at all surprising that Tracey felt a need to search for the roots of the family's madness. It's unfortunate that he didn't consult a skilled genealogist who would have established his correct lineage and might have been able to help him achieve greater success.
--Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, Certified Genealogist
My Number One Pick for 2008 November 13, 2008
Kathryn A. Varuzza (New Paltz, NY)
Stalking Irish Madness:Searching for the Roots of My Family's Schizophrenia is an incredible book. This year I've read 115 books to date and this is the best one. I read it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down. Patrick Tracey is an excellent writer and storyteller. What makes this book incredible instead of just good is that it is well written, it takes you on a journey, it is very interesting, it teaches you about the links between mental illness and the Irish, and it touches your heart and soul.
This book is for everyone. You do not have to be Irish, or have schizophrenia or any other mental illness to benefit from this book.
This book is a very important book because it has the potential to help millions of families. Every family has some secret in their family tree, whether it is schizophrenia, or alcoholism, or drug abuse. Every family has issues that are hidden and not discussed. I say this is an important book because I hope people will use this book as a catalyst to help them start talking to their family members about these issues and get them out in the open. If you have alcoholism or schizophrenia, or depression that runs in your family, evey member should know about it so they can make decisions that could affect their well being and the well being of future generations.
What we do now, the decisions we make today, affect our children and grandchildren.
If Mr. Tracey can tell the whole world about how his family has been affected by schizophrenia we all can confront our relatives and find out the hidden issues that are lurking in our family trees.
After I finished reading this book I was very grateful to Mr. Tracey for having had the courage to share his story. He made me feel better about my own family. We all have issues that we are ashamed of in our family and that we tend to hide for one reason or another. This hiding and shame accomplishes nothing. It doesn't make the issues go away; they just fester under the surface. The truth does set you free.
I am American. I was born and raised here, and I am Irish and Lebanese and I have issues on both sides of my family tree. My Lebanese grandmother didn't bother to tell the family that she had Mediterranean Anemia. It was just lucky that none of us had children with others who also had Mediterranean Anemia because then the children would have had to have constant blood transfusions. Her keeping quiet didn't make it go away it just put her grandchildren and great grandchildren in unnecessary danger.
On my Irish side of the family, my great grandmother was put into a mental institution after her young husband died of a heart attack, leaving her with 4 children to raise on her own, the youngest was a newborn. My grandfather was told his mother had died. He never knew the truth about his mother. She lived a long life. He could have gone to visit her. We only found out the truth a few years ago, and we still don't know what the diagnosis was. So, my Irish relatives decided to tell my grandfather he no longer had a mother rather than tell him the truth.
This is what I am talking about. And this is why this book is so important. Read this book and give copies of it to your relatives. Use it to start the conversation about the difficult issues in your family tree. Our relatives who know the family stories and secrets won't live forever. Use Mr. Tracey as an example and start talking.
Read it November 9, 2008
Mr. Leslie R. Eadie (London, England)
They say we all have a book inside of us, but i doubt many could match this for its original subject matter. Mr Tracey lays it bare for us all, as they say, "warts un all". I doubt many of us would like to even delve this deep into our past and then reveal it in print to the world.
I think this book should also be read as an insight into Pat Tracey himself and the complex issues that he has had to deal with in writing this book and into the serious issues which are literally ignored by society in Schizophrenia.
It was an excellent read and i loved travelling with Pat on his journey and the way he brought it to life, i hope he brings us something else(he touched on alcoholism and drugs in his life) as he can certainly tell a story like only the Irish can, candid, with humour and emotion.
A story told with heartfelt courage November 8, 2008
Katherine Scanga Anderson (Barrington, RI United States)
With heartfelt courage Patrick Tracey chronicles his family's present and past history with the mental condition, schizophrenia. The disease descends from his mother's side of the family with roots originating back to Ireland's County Roscommon. As a child Tracey hears tales of his institutionalized grandmother leaving the house in morning and returning home at night with her teeth completely pulled out, enacting what voices in her head told her. He goes on to describe in detail how during his college years he witnesses two of his older four sisters descend into madness, each during their early twenties. Thirty years later Tracey sets forth in a camping van back to Ireland to hopefully meet relatives and find some answers. Recently becoming aware that Ireland had the world's highest rate of mental illness up until the 1960's, Tracey discovers plenty of local lore on his travels, including tales of fairies living in ancient caverns that capture people's minds and well water in a valley of Gleanna-A-Galt holding healing powers. He attends The Hearing Voices Network conference and meets people that have learned to control the voices they hear and are able to function drug free with the disease. Tracey separates fact from fiction for the reader and comes up with an interesting accumulation of information about schizophrenia's past and future. This book is part travelogue, part psychological and genealogical history, and part one man's own, and often difficult, self-discovery. It places a humanistic understanding on mental illness, which statistics show one in every four people worldwide suffer from some type, one in one hundred from schizophrenia, the most severe form. It gives some hope, however small, to the future of schizophrenics and their families. Tracey's amazing ability to tell a story with humor, passion and insights into this disease, makes this book one all should take time to read.
|
|
|
SEO and Marketing TipsBETA RELEASE | |
