Is There No Place on Earth for Me? - Softcover

Sheehan, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394713788 ISBN 13: 9780394713786

Publisher: Vintage, 1983

Synopsis

" A brilliantly documented chronicle of young woman's long struggle with schizophrenia."

-- Willard Gaylin, The New Republic

"Sylvia Frumkin," highly intelligent young girl, became a schizophrenic in her late teens and spent most of the next seventeen years in anti out of mental institutions. Susan Sheehan, a talented reporter followed "Sylvia" for almost a year talking with and observing her listening to her monologues, sitting in on consultations with doctors, even for a period sleeping in the bed next to her in a mental hospital.

"Susan Sheehan has committed an extraordinary act of journalism....She brings relentless intelligent attention to bear on a particular case, a journalistic practice that almost always results in new and disturbing insights into those mindless generalities and prejudice and certitudes we tend to carry around with us." -- Meg Greenfield, front page Washington Post Book World

"Sheehan is tenacious, observant and unsentimental. The history of a single patient leads us into a maze of understaffed institutions, bureaucratic fumbling, trial-and-error treatment and familial incomprehension. Though Sheehan keeps herself invisible, her sympathy is palpable."

-- Walter Clemons, Newsweek

By the author of Lift for Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair

About this title

About the Author

Susan Sheehan is the author of eight works of nonfiction. In 1983, she received a Pulitzer Prize for Is There No Place On Earth For Me? She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Review

“The classic case study of schizophrenia that set the stage for reform. . . . Its insight, compassion, and humanity have much to teach us." —Andrew Solomon 

"Compelling, mordantly funny. . . . [A] beautifully written chronicle." —The New York Times 

"A brilliantly documented chronicle of a young woman's long struggle with schizophrenia." —The New Republic

"Susan Sheehan has committed an extraordinary act of journalism. . . . She brings relentless intelligent attention to bear on a particular case, a journalistic practice that almost always results in new and disturbing insights into those mindless generalities and prejudice and certitudes we tend to carry around with us." —The Washington Post Book World

"Sheehan is tenacious, observant and unsentimental. The history of a single patient leads us into a maze of understaffed institutions, bureaucratic fumbling, trial-and-error treatment and familial incomprehension. Though Sheehan keeps herself invisible, her sympathy is palpable." —Newsweek

"[A] monumental piece of reportage. . . . A model of close-up journalism: totally convincing, unsentimental yet obviously compassionate, rigorously plain." —Kirkus Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0394713788
• ISBN 13: 9780394713786
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352