The Lily Pond: A Memoir of Madness, Memory, Myth and Metamorphosis

(Paperback)

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Description

A memoir that chronicles unflinchingly the destructiveness of bipolar disorder - an illness that infiltrates thinking, feeling and acting in ways that change the very fabric of identity, of the life story one is telling oneself; however, The Lily Pond is equally searching in its exploration of the psyche's resources in healing and reknitting that story.

Reviews

"...fiercely alive, marked by a sharp, unerring eye for detail and a wonderful way with metaphors."-Toronto Star "His lucid prose brings to mind Poe's Gothic horror, Hunter S. Thompson's strangeness (without the drug-craze), and William Burroughs' ellipsis (without the disintegration). But it is perhaps closest to Roald Dahl's intimate exploration of human oddity and use of surprise in Switch Bitch."-Globe and Mail "Barnes writes like a contrary angel, dazzling with his deft craft and smacking readers in the gut with concentrated and perceptive subjects."-Malahat Review

Author Bio

Mike Barnes: Mike Barnes is the author of Calm Jazz Sea, shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, Aquarium, winner of the 1999 Danuta Gleed Award for best first book of stories by a Canadian, The Syllabus, a novel, and the short fiction collection Contrary Angel. His stories have appeared twice in Best Canadian Stories, three times in The Journey Prize Anthology, and won the Silver Medal for Fiction at the National Magazine Awards. He lives in Toronto.