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Interview with Ann L. McLaughlin
Yes. I wanted to show the anguish and uncertainty that surrounded both patient and doctor before the widespread use of tranquilizers and especially before the advent of lithium carbonate, which has had dramatic effects in alleviating the symptoms of manic-depression in many patients.
Yes, although I have plunged further into fiction in this novel than I did in my first, in order to shape the story and give it a clarity that the experience of mental illness does not have in the living of it, of course.
The physical pain of polio seemed almost tangible, while the pain of mental illness, terrible as it is, seems far more elusive and difficult to describe, partly because it is so often shrouded by the heavy shame the patient feels at having failed certain familial and societal expectations and needs. That shame and guilt, which is not part of the polio victim's experience, can exaggerate the pain of the mental patient to a terrible degree.
Mental illness still evokes embarrassment for many people, and yet almost everyone has had some experience of depression or knows someone who has. And our resources for dealing with these problems, though certainly better, are still limited. Thus it seems important to me that we try to write and talk as honestly as we can about what we know. Everyone's experience in this mysterious business is different, but one person's story can shed a little light on another's and can perhaps help some.
Yes, very. There are so many logical reasons why we might not survive, and yet we do much of the time-surprising ourselves with the discovery that we and our bodies are stronger than we thought they were and that, when faced with a difficult situation, we do have courage to go on.
Yes. Obviously women are not the only survivors, but women often have a special connection to the ongoing work of life that helps them to survive. They are often the ones who feed and tend and do the daily chores, and in the end it is often the daily responsibilities, not the analytical insights, that hold people in this life.
No. Quite the opposite. I feel that the making of art, however awkward and humble, and help to keep one sane.
I think writing can be enormously therapeutic for almost anyone. It can help to clarify your thoughts and stimulate others. Obviously there are times in manic-depressive illness when writing is almost too provocative, but I think it was probably better for Margo to write than to try to talk out all of those thoughts, or, as it turns out, try to convey them visually.
I recommend writing out actual memories initially in as much detail as you can remember before you begin to shape them and decide on the emphasis and meaning. Diaries and journals can be very important in this early process.
I began it twenty-five years ago. I certainly haven't been working at it continuously, but I've come back to it repeatedly during that time, so that, among the several manuscripts I've worked on, this is the one I've revised the most and have the most versions of stacked in the attic.
It's really just a writing device. I wrote the story a number of times solely from Margo's point of view, and it always seemed to me that I got trapped in that depressed or fevered first person, trapping the reader with me. The device of the several voices of the family members, the neighbor, and the doctor allowed me to circle the problem and lift the story out of the straight case history format. Or so I hope.
Margo receives poor treatment initially from a rigid, inexperienced doctor, but when she gets to the hospital she is treated with compassion and her doctor has the wisdom to admit that neither he nor any psychiatric resource as a real remedy to offer. In the end, Margo recognizes that she is sick, but that if she watches herself carefully she can live a fairly normal life. That realization is crucial, and I mean it to signal a cautiously happy ending. |
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