Memoirs

A Room with a Darker View

Chronicles of My Mother and Schizophrenia

by Claire Phillips

Description

Claire Phillips’ elegantly written and unflinching memoir about her mother, an Oxford-trained lawyer diagnosed in mid-life with paranoid schizophrenia, challenges current conceptions about mental illness, relapse and recovery, as well as difficulties caring for an aging parent with a chronic disease. Told in fragments, the work reflects back to her family history in England and Zimbabwe, where she visits to learn about the medical legacy of her grandfather, Michael Gelfand. As she breaks the family silence about her mother’s schizophrenia, Phillips reframes hospitalizations, paranoia, illness, and caregiving through a feminist lens.

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Reviews

An inventively told and wholly original memoir.
– David Gutowski, Largehearted Boy
Read Claire Phillips’ playlist for their Book Notes series.

Author Biography

Claire Phillips is co-founder and director of the Los Angeles Writers Reading Series, is the author of the novella Black Market Babies (11th Hour Press, 1998) and as a young poet at San Francisco State won the First Prize from the Academy of American Poets. She is a regular contributor to Black Clock magazine, where her essay "Hanging from the Chandeliers" appeared and then received a Pushcart nomination and notable mention in The Best American Essays 2015. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Motherboard-Vice and can be heard on the KQED Writers' Block and found at viralnet.net. In May 2019 she read in Jill Soloway's famed Sit n' Spin series on the Comedy Central stage. She resides in Los Angeles where she teaches critical and creative writing at the California Institute for the Arts (CalArts), the Southern California Institute for Architecture (SCI-Arc), and at UC Irvine. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from New York University, and a BA in English from San Francisco State University.

Copyright Information

©2020 Claire Phillips

DoppelHouse Press

DoppelHouse Press

DOPPELHOUSE PRESS is a character-driven publisher that focuses on memoir, art, architecture, design, and music, often encompassing forces behind migration and diaspora. Our mission is to bring together a plurality of voices to examine the dynamics between sociopolitical forces and aesthetic forms.  The support of human rights and self-determination, untangling historical misperceptions, and providing alternate perspectives has been an equally important goal. Our books hinge around art and bravery, conviction and perseverance, defiance, hope, and the personal stories of people who seek to imagine a better world. DoppelHouse Press books are distributed to the trade by Consortium / Ingram. Contact:Publisher@DoppelHousePress.com | T: +1 424-258-4423 | F: +1 323-349-0985

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher DoppelHouse Press
  • Publication Date August 2020
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9781733957908
  • Publication Country or regionUnited States
  • FormatPaperback
  • Primary Price 18.95 USD
  • Pages272
  • ReadershipGeneral
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Original Language TitleA Room with a Darker View: Chronicles of My Mother and Schizophrenia
  • Original Language AuthorsClaire Phillips
  • Copyright Year2020
  • Dimensions8x5.2 inches
  • Illustration1 Black and White illustration

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