CBR15passport – a new to me author
My Cannonball15 is off to a great start; I’m three for three so far. This book, The Art of Insanity by Christine Webb, was an “extra surprise” gift from Black Raven as part of the CBR14 Holiday Book Exchange. It is a wonderful story about a high school senior named Natalie Cordova who has bipolar disorder and who struggles with the illness, its stigma, and her friends’ and family members’ reactions to it. Author Christine Webb tells readers that she herself has bipolar disorder and that her descriptions of anxiety attacks and other manifestations of bipolar disorder are based on her own experience plus things she has learned from the mental health community. She emphasizes that her personal experience does not necessarily reflect the experiences of others. In the autism community, we like to say that if you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism. It seems that the same could be said of bipolar disorder, and I appreciate the author’s emphasis on this point from the outset.
On the face of it, Natalie Cordova has the world on a string. She is pretty, smart and popular; she has a couple of very close friends who have known her since they were little; and she could very well get an art scholarship for college, especially since her private art instructor is going to feature her students’ work in a prestigious art show. Yet there is a big secret that Natalie keeps from everyone except her mother and brother (and that’s only because she can’t hide it from them). Over the summer, Natalie almost died in a car accident that was no accident. She tried to take her own life and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her mother, who has been raising Natalie and her older brother Brent single-handedly since they were very young, is obsessed with appearances and is adamant that NO ONE should know about Natalie’s mental illness. Brent seems perpetually annoyed with Natalie for her actions and is his mother’s staunchest ally. Natalie struggles with the diagnosis and the thought that there is something wrong with her brain, with her, and she hates that she has to see a psychiatrist and take medication. When school starts, she feels like she has things under control. Lots of students approach her in sympathy for her accident (they think she swerved to miss a deer), and it looks like she might even have a shot at becoming homecoming queen.
This is the point where several things happen to upset Natalie’s very fragile equilibrium. First, a quirky sophomore named Ella contacts her to let her know that Ella saw Natalie’s car crash and knows it was not an accident. We learn that Ella is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD; she is not interested in blackmailing Natalie but needs her help with an unusual problem. This leads to an unlikely but charming friendship. Second, when Natalie returns to her after-school art class, a really cute college student has been hired as a tech; Ty is a talented artist in his own right and also happens to be a friend of her brother Brent. It’s clear there are sparks between the two but Natalie is wary of getting too close to anyone given her bipolar diagnosis. Finally, there is the matter of Natalie’s father, an artist who died when Natalie was about 4 years old. Before trying to kill herself, Natalie overheard her mother and aunts talking about him and his schizophrenia; Natalie’s mom is clearly distressed at the thought that she is going to have to struggle again to handle a family member with mental illness. This contributes to Natalie’s sense of worthlessness and makes her wonder who her father really was.
It isn’t long before Natalie’s secret is the subject of rumors at school. Natalie is terrified at the thought of other people seeing her as broken and “crazy.” Webb’s descriptions of Natalie’s panic attack and a later “manic” episode were riveting and quite moving. She takes us through Natalie’s thought process — the terror she feels, the way she tries to control herself, and the impact on the art she creates. For me, the most interesting part was the impact on those around her and their reactions to Natalie and the bipolar diagnosis. Her best friends try to be supportive but seem not to understand Natalie’s desire for privacy and boundaries. They become afraid of “setting her off,” which means they aren’t treating her as the friend they have known from childhood. Natalie’s mother seems irritated and critical; she thinks a future in art is no future at all and won’t discuss Natalie’s father at all. Ella is the only one who seems unphased by Natalie’s diagnosis. Ella takes medication for her own mental health issues and seems unbothered by it; Natalie admires Ella’s unflappability in the face of other people’s judgments and criticisms. While she didn’t really want to get to know Ella, and was sort of forced to by circumstances, Natalie begins to value the friendship that Ella can offer her and starts looking at herself and her peers differently.
Christine Webb provides a well informed and sympathetic perspective on mental health issues. Her characters felt very real to me, particularly in their reactions to the news of Natalie’s attempted suicide and bipolar diagnosis. I think it is very important to have the point of view of a character with bipolar disorder represented so well in this novel. I suspect that while many folks have heard the term “bipolar,” they don’t really understand what the reality of it might look like. This novel provides that in a story that kept me hooked in to the end.
