Outside the Lines
Reviewed By Grasshopper2 December 27, 2014
Author Amy Hatvany
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ISBN: 9781451640540
Publisher: Washington Square Press
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Website: http://www.simonandschuster.com
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Mental illness! This is a topic that affects many people. The author deals with this issue authentically and sensitively. She shows how not only the patient suffers, but loved ones struggle to lead a “normal life”.
The story begins in 2010, showing Eden, the main character, as an adult. The author moves the time frame back to 1989 when the family is a happy, loving unit.
Eden is a young girl, whose mother, Lydia, works and her father, David, paints for a living. Gradually her father begins to change, until he is diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder.
David has been such a wonderful father and husband till this time, that both Eden and her mother are desperate to support him. David feels that the medication dulls his mind and stifles his imagination. Without his medication, he can’t make rational decisions, or control the voices in his head. Only alcohol can do that.
Despite the efforts, love and support given to him, David attempts to take his life and is discovered by his daughter. There is no other choice for Lydia than to acquiesce when he packs to leave home and live on the streets.
The story now switches to an older Eden, who is a successful chef, working for a large corporation. She has many unresolved issues from childhood and she as an adult, needs to see her father. Eden has met a man while working at a homeless shelter, and together, they begin the search for her father.
The author has written this realistically, factually and with great compassion. The desperate attempts to keep David on his medication, failed in this particular case.
Amy Hatvany creates characters and a story so credible that you journey with them and feel their emotion. Because some chapters are written from David’s point of view, and some chapters are written from Eden’s perspective, the reader gets a wider understanding of the complex issues.
There are some things in life that just “are”; Lydia, Eden and the reader, come to accept that.