The Outsider : A Journey Into My Father's Struggle With Madness

Rating:
Summary: A Journey Toward Understanding
Review: "The Outsider" is the kind of book that seeps into your soul because of the common thread of our humanity it exposes. Early on in the book, Lachenmayer draws our attention to a homeless man he and his father encounter on a boyhood trip into New York City. He uses this small incident - something most of us who travel in urban areas have experienced - to illustrate that we'd be better off withholding a hasty judgement on the reasons a person finds him or herself in such a place.

The author takes us on a journey with him in retracing his father's experiences as a person with a mental illness (schizophrenia) who crosses over into homelessness for awhile. Lachenmayer carefully chronicles his father's contacts before, during and after this time with social workers, those in the legal system, a bank security guard and fast food worker. As a result, the reader comes away with a vivid picture of the life of someone in crisis who falls into homelessness. A homeless person becomes a real flesh and blood person who was someone's son, husband and father. Charles' triumph is one of the human spirit in never giving up despite disability and hardship. "The Outsider" challenges our view of those who are homeless. It evokes compassion for a father who struggled mightily and admiration for his son in having the courage to embrace his father's story wherever it led.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just About Schizophrenia
Review: A memoir about a son's investigation into his father's downfall due to paranoid schizophrenia. A poignant look at the travails of the mentally ill in this country that made me think twice on subfreezing winter nights when I get to go inside a nice warm home. I was also touched by the themes of family and connectedness with humans, be they homeless, mentally ill, or just family members that we've lost touch with over the years.

Rating:
Summary: Should be a movie
Review: How many times have we looked at homeless people on the street and wondered how they got there? I've thought about it many times, because my own father was homeless when he died. When I searched for books about people with homeless parents, Lachenmeyer's "The Outsider" was the only one I could find. I expected a revealing look at what it's like to have an indigent parent - what I didn't expect was for it to be so touching, well-written, and kind. I hope others read it and have more compassion for the nameless people haunting our streets. All of them have family somewhere.

Rating:
Summary: I Wish I Could Capture Truth So Beautifully
Review: I feel deep gratitude for Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and his father Charles without whose genius and personal experience a book like this could not have been written.

This is now my favorite book. It used to be a tie between my collection of Wordsworth's poetry or E.M. Forester's A Room with a View.

As a person living with a mental illness, namely, depression, I find such beautiful dignity in Mr. Lachenmeyer's portrayal of a great human being stripped of his deserved high esteem by his experience with schizophrenia.

This book reminded me to be grateful that I deal with depression and not schizophrenia. It helped me understand some of the sociological roots of my own depression, an understanding stimulated by a discussion of Charles Lachenmeyer's "double bind theory."

It also heartened me by showing me that there are people out there like Nathaniel Lachenmeyer who feel love rather than disdain and judgement toward those of US labeled "mentally ill" -- it is very much an outsider label.

Lastly, I know there is a school of thought that believes that the most expert writing speaks only to a select few who are educated enough to be able to read it.

I feel the opposite. I feel there is great genius in making the inscrutable approachable. The author's unraveling of the personal experiences of a schizophrenic certainly must have been difficult in itself...However, the author shows his genius in being able to make the irrational seem simple, clear, and reasonable. His writing is lucid enough for the common man to read. His father would have loved this book, since he was himself so fond of the common man, despite his own uncommon intelligence.

You will be enchanted by this read! Don't miss it. Inspired by the author's own heroic honesty, I am signing my real name -- regardless of the stigma attached. ---Caroline McKiernan

Rating:
Summary: courage and strength
Review: I found this book to be very well written and admired the courage and strength of its subject as well as the courage of the author. It must have been very painful for Nathaniel Lachenmeyer to learn of, then write about, some of the trials his father faced and conquered while receiving no support from family or friends. He is to be commended for sharing this memoir. It will help the reader to better understand the illness of schizophrenia and particularly to empathize with the homeless who suffer from the illness.

Rating:
Summary: New to Schizophrenia
Review: Nathanial Lachenmeyer's book was an amazing read. Having a rather new but strong interest in schizophrenia as well as hearing the interview on FreshAir compelled me to buy this book. It opened many new doors for me as far as understanding the disease more. My step-father's brother has the disease. I've always wanted to have at least a small understanding of his behaviour. Thank God I was able to get a hold of this book. Not only does it tell the sad story of a man spinning downward (yet still holding his head high no matter how adverse his environment becomes) but it gives the reader a great understanding of the disease and statistics surrounding it as well. I still cannot get over how he was near death by starvation yet they held his SSI money. And it has to be mentioned when Charles Lachenmeyer was asked if he thought he were mentally ill, he stated that his mental illness was "love of life and humanity". Truly amazing!

Rating:
Summary: The Outsider - An unsparing look at Mental Illness
Review: Nathaniel Lachenmeyer's The Outsider - A Journey into My Father's Struggle with Madness is a unique book for many reasons. Written from the perspective of a hapless onlooker, it encompasses the full gamut of emotions suffered by the relatives of a person who is mentally ill. Furthermore, in the author's search for rhyme or reason for his father's demise the author eschews political grandstanding or heated rhetorical calls for "something to be done". Instead this is ultimately a book about acceptance - the acceptance of the vaguries of life, of the fact that nothing is guaranteed and ultimately, that sometimes when we face life's challenges we find ourselves incapable of rising to the occasion.

Written, as the title states, about the author's father's struggle with mental illness, the book also details the reaction of his family, his father's colleagues and the people: Social Workers, Caregivers and Cops, who came into contact with his father while he suffered from the illness which inevitably drove him onto the streets. In this the book is refreshingly frank - the author refrains from assigning blame and instead - perhaps as a result of his own lingering guilt over his own inability to deal with his father - examines the difficulty of dealing with a person suffering from mental illness. Lachenmeyer doesn't gloss over the conflicting emotions that people who deal with the mentally ill have, nor does he try to glorify those who are forced onto the streets because of it. Lachenmeyer is instead refreshingly unsparing in his examination of the problems associated with people suffering from mental illness, their impact of their illness on those around them and the questions surrounding how to adequately care for them.

Perhaps one of the most important points made throughout the book is about how so many mentally ill people end up on the street. Lachenmeyer is one of the few writers in this field to acknowledge that the whole concept of "deinstitutionalization", a hold-over from the ethos of the 1960's is largely responsible for the huge number of mentally ill homeless people on the streets today. In this Lachenmeyer definitely takes a chance at losing the part of his audience that is content to blame conservative governments and rapacious landlords for today's state of affairs. Further still, Lachenmeyer is surprisingly accepting of the role of police in dealing with the mentally ill, refraining from charged, politically-motivated commentary and instead accepting that the police too are responsible for, yet ill-equipped to deal with the mentally ill on the streets.

All too often reviewers label a book as "important". This is one of those books that truly is important; it is a sensitive, objective and heartfelt look at the problems surrounding mental illness and those that suffer it. Written with compassion and yet accurate in its analysis this book is an excellent reference source as well as an engaging and thought-provoking read. This book deserves a wide audience as it offers the potential to bring balance and objectivity to the on- going debate over the homeless and the mentally ill.It is definitely a must read for anyone who is even remotely associated with this issue. However, as a story alone it is one not to be missed

Rating:
Summary: The Outsider - An unsparing look at Mental Illness
Review: Nathaniel Lachenmeyer's The Outsider - A Journey into My Father's Struggle with Madness is a unique book for many reasons. Written from the perspective of a hapless onlooker, it encompasses the full gamut of emotions suffered by the relatives of a person who is mentally ill. Furthermore, in the author's search for rhyme or reason for his father's demise the author eschews political grandstanding or heated rhetorical calls for "something to be done". Instead this is ultimately a book about acceptance - the acceptance of the vaguries of life, of the fact that nothing is guaranteed and ultimately, that sometimes when we face life's challenges we find ourselves incapable of rising to the occasion.

Written, as the title states, about the author's father's struggle with mental illness, the book also details the reaction of his family, his father's colleagues and the people: Social Workers, Caregivers and Cops, who came into contact with his father while he suffered from the illness which inevitably drove him onto the streets. In this the book is refreshingly frank - the author refrains from assigning blame and instead - perhaps as a result of his own lingering guilt over his own inability to deal with his father - examines the difficulty of dealing with a person suffering from mental illness. Lachenmeyer doesn't gloss over the conflicting emotions that people who deal with the mentally ill have, nor does he try to glorify those who are forced onto the streets because of it. Lachenmeyer is instead refreshingly unsparing in his examination of the problems associated with people suffering from mental illness, their impact of their illness on those around them and the questions surrounding how to adequately care for them.

Perhaps one of the most important points made throughout the book is about how so many mentally ill people end up on the street. Lachenmeyer is one of the few writers in this field to acknowledge that the whole concept of "deinstitutionalization", a hold-over from the ethos of the 1960's is largely responsible for the huge number of mentally ill homeless people on the streets today. In this Lachenmeyer definitely takes a chance at losing the part of his audience that is content to blame conservative governments and rapacious landlords for today's state of affairs. Further still, Lachenmeyer is surprisingly accepting of the role of police in dealing with the mentally ill, refraining from charged, politically-motivated commentary and instead accepting that the police too are responsible for, yet ill-equipped to deal with the mentally ill on the streets.

All too often reviewers label a book as "important". This is one of those books that truly is important; it is a sensitive, objective and heartfelt look at the problems surrounding mental illness and those that suffer it. Written with compassion and yet accurate in its analysis this book is an excellent reference source as well as an engaging and thought-provoking read. This book deserves a wide audience as it offers the potential to bring balance and objectivity to the on- going debate over the homeless and the mentally ill.It is definitely a must read for anyone who is even remotely associated with this issue. However, as a story alone it is one not to be missed

Rating:
Summary: courage and strength
Review: Nicholas Lachenmeyer writes about his own father, Charles W. Lachenmeyer, Ph.D. - a sociologist, author and professor - and about his father's struggle with paranoid schizophrenia. This disease ended his career and ultimately led to indigence, homelessness, and death.

This is also a mystery book with homeless characters, but of the nonfiction variety. One mystery, which Nathaniel establishes early on, is the mystery of the circumstances of his father's death. Years after losing contact with his father, he learns that his father has died in an apartment in Burlington, Vermont, apparently well-off, but that just the year before he had been homeless.

How had his father's situation improved, so that he could be cleaned up and well dressed at the time of his death? What might have led to the heart attack that killed him?

But the real mystery for Lachenmeyer is the nature of his father's world. He follows every clue that he can find, interviewing case workers, police officers, shelter managers, security guards, former academic colleagues, other homeless people, anyone who might have some insight into the way his father lived toward the end of his life, and above all into how he thought about his life and his world.

Given that paranoid schizophrenia is so difficult to understand - even psychiatrists don't understand it very well - it's inevitable that The Outsider should be to a large extent about the changing attitudes of the author toward his subject. It is very compelling on that level.

Lachenmeyer does a good job of conveying how his fear and estrangement from his father evolves into deep respect for the dignity of his struggle. He comes to realize both the enormous obstacles that his father faced simply to survive, and the strength of character that he managed to maintain even when reality was most lost to him.

But the book is also a pleasure to read for the humor that emerges from the story along the way. I particularly enjoyed a transcript of some delightful exchanges as a judge orders Charles to appear for a hearing. When the state's attorney says, "You understand your obligation to appear at that time?" Charles answers with, "Sure. I'll be here in a three-piece suit with the Queen of England."

Of course he misses his court date, too busy simply trying to survive on the streets to pay attention to the calendar.

The only reservation I have about recommending The Outsider stems from the harsh treatment that Lachenmeyer gives his father's parents. I have the feeling that some of his initial intolerance of his father's condition may have been displaced to the grandparents, and to their Christian Scientist upbringing of Charles.

Still, I'd say read the book and accept that as part of evolution of Lachenmeyer's attitudes.

Rating:
Summary: Understanding the life of an Outsider
Review: This is a beautiful, and beautifully written, account of mental illness (schizophrenia) and a descent into homelessness, tied together by a son's journey of understanding. A highly recommended read for those who would like to understand more about homelessness and mental illness; a revelation of the human face behind each, written with a novelist's sense of pacing and character and drama. A wonderful achievement.