Walks on the Margins: A Story of Bipolar Illness

2014 Colorado Independent Publishers Book Award
2014 Pikes Peak Library Golden Quill Award
2014 KINDLE BOOK AWARD-Semifinalist.
A mother/son memoir by Kathy Brandt & Max Maddox In Walks on the Margins, Kathy Brandt offers a valiant and unapologetic struggle of a mother trying to find a semblance of her son as they are both wrapped in the turmoil of an illness once known as Manic Depression. Bathed in gentle compassion and exuding the most resilient love for her son and family, Kathy’s narrative favors a compelling witness-writing that shows how it feels to be within the circle of those intimately affected by mental illness and in a world beset by institutional failure.

Max Maddox’s attentive gaze depicts reality through the lens of the artist he is yet to become, unearthing poetry, rhymes and a broad palette of colors in the most sordid of places. With a callous, ruthless self-scrutiny, he retells both his manic and depressive episodes. At times unnerving, the fierce honesty of his prose is ameliorated by humor and a highly visual writing style reminiscent of the vanguard novellas. Max conveys a playful and unsettling beauty that he scratches off the seemly dim surface of day-to-day life.

It’s the whiz kid and his vexed mother. His emotional unrest and her unhindered kindness. Mother and son weave their narratives into a single powerful story about coming to terms with bipolar disorder.

A finalist for the Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction.