RX
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A graphic memoir about the treatment of mental illness, treating mental illness as a commodity.
In her early twenties in New York City, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Rachel Lindsay takes a job in advertising in order to secure healthcare coverage for her treatment. But work takes a strange turn when she is promoted onto the Pfizer account and suddenly finds herself on the other side of the curtain, developing ads for an anti-depressant drug. Overwhelmed by her professional life and the self-scrutiny it inspires, her mania takes hold. She quits her job to become an artist, only to be hospitalized by her parents against her will. Over the course of her two weeks in the ward, she tries to find a path out of the hospital and this cycle of treatment. One where she can live the life she wants, finding freedom and autonomy, without sacrificing her dreams in order to stay well.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In simple, sketchy linework, Lindsay's snappy graphic memoir depicts the manic days in 2011 when she was hospitalized against her will after quitting her job, causing a scene in a restaurant, and shouting at police. An angry black cloud often surrounds her bug-eyed self-caricature, an expression of her fury at how bipolar disorder has encircled her life with "red tape." She would prefer to live as a vagabond artist, but the requirement of reliable health insurance forces her into a soul-sucking advertising gig instead. "Everyone else my age," she cries to her psychiatrist, "They're all bartending and backpacking Europe and dicking around... when do I get to find myself?" The cartoonish, exaggerated character design, reminiscent of the work of Roberta Gregory, is easy-reading and echoes the extremity of Lindsay's moods. Like Ellen Forney's memoir about bipolar disorder, Marbles, Lindsay struggles to understand the relationship between her creativity and her mental illness. Is suddenly quitting her corporate gig a brave pursuit of her artistic passion or merely a symptom of mania? As she passed weeks in the hospital, Lindsay drew her experiences driven and determined even in the swirling cloud of her illness to create, resulting in this illuminated account of self-discovery.)
