Rating: 
Summary: His Father Should Be Proud
Review: Brutally honest, and at times extremely humorous, this account of a young man's journey through insanity is a splendid read. This narrative takes you on a ride through Heaven and Hell, and lays bare the inner-workings of a mind gone rotten. As his father before him, the author leaves no violator of his honor or goodwill unscathed. Be it human or non, any and all things are vulnerable to the young Vonnegut's scorn. Not only is the story strange and thrilling, but it also serves to educate the reader about schizophrenia in a new and unique way (though it is quite a few years old, it was never fully accepted into the mainstream and still retains an amazingly individual view of the matter). Amid biting sarcasm and the indomitable fear of losing one's grip on life, a timeless and beautiful message shines through: "There's no shame, there's no blame... there's hope. That's what this book is all about" (Mark Vonnegut).
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing Personal Account
Review: I am 15 years old and I read this book for a Schizophrenia research paper. Mark Vonnegut has been my doctor in Boston all of my life. It was an interesting journey to explore through HIS perspective of his own experience... Highly Reccomend it!
Rating:
Summary: The Home Study Course...
Review: I came upon Mark Vonnegut's book during a summer of unemployment. I read Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, and all the first person accounts of Woodstock. I read Kurt Vonnegut, and in a lucky stroll through the Sci-fi section, I read Kilgore Trout's 'Venus on the Half Shell'. When I came upon Mark Vonnegut's book, Eden Express, I thought I was getting into a 'son-of' phase.
Eden Express details the experiences of Mark Vonnegut as he comes to terms with a brain and a mind that no longer follow his dictates. It is a tale of hard lessons, filtered through expectation and dreams.A book of exploration, it ends on a note of healing; it encourages self determination with respect to treatment. It is a thoughtful examination of ability, hope, and healing.
I sincerely hope Mr. Vonnegut reissues this book, and offers his impressions since his earliest struggles with mental illness.
"It is no measure of sanity to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society" Krishna Murti
Thank you Mark... and best wishes.
Rating:
Summary: A good book about a first psychotic experience
Review: I first read this book my junior year in college as a class text for a psych course in disorders. I wish all my psych texts were half this interesting! This is a personal account of what it's like to develop scizophrenia, go through treatment, recover, relapse, etc... My only criticism of this book is that I wish he had waited longer to write it and told more about his life since recovering. One other thing to note: this is a really funny book. If it weren't for all the heavy stuff in this book, it could easily be a comedy book. The thing about this book that makes the deepest impression on me is that even in his most wacked out, deeply scizophrenic episodes, he still gives you the impression that it's the rest of the world that's gone crazy and he's just floating along trying to keep his head above water. The author is the son of the famous Kurt Vonnegut, which he references occasionally in his book, but it's not a predominant theme by any means. I think part of the reason for that is that his dad wasn't famous until he was almost an adult and then had this "son of a famous guy" thing cast upon him just as he was trying to strike out on his own and make his own life. Anyhow, this is a must-read book, and is one of my favorites of all time.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Insight!
Review: I had taken several classes in psychology in college and really thought that I had a grasp of what it was like to live with schizophrenia. Not so! This book takes you into the world and mind of a person with this disorder. Mark Vonnegut is so honest and open and you really gain a real world feel for what it is to be a person living with schizophrenia. If you are at all interested in this topic, I really feel it is a must read!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting insights but difficult to finish
Review: I have been looking for this out-of-print cult classic for 7 years. I had the pleasure of meeting Mark Vonnegut in 1994, and a few friends recommended his book at the time. I had a very hard time finding the book. Copies were stolen from several libraries I tried, and I was outbid a couple of times on eBay! Finally, I found a copy in a library. I was truly so excited to start reading. So, now, after 7 years of trying, I'm ready to analyze this book. The book very effectively captures the feeling of being schizophrenic (I think!), with rushes of overwhelming thoughts following from the most mundane of stimuli, and a loss of all sense of time. Being in the medical profession, I've had the opportunity to meet several schizophrenic patients, and I now feel like I have some modicum of understanding of how they must feel. The book also offers a fascinating insight into the '60s counterculture, in which the authors' friends enable his mental illness for months, defending it as a form of free thinking, until he's undeniably ill. But I had a hard time getting through the book. It's mercifully short, but after 200 patients of psychotic thinking, I couldn't make myself read the last 30. Understandably, the story basically goes around in circles -- initial illness --> recovery --> relapse --> mild recovery --> worse relapse. There isn't really any sense of progression. In some ways, it reminded me of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Beautifully evocative of a certain era and subculture, but after ambling back and forth across the country a few times, I had had enough!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting insights but difficult to finish
Review: I have been looking for this out-of-print cult classic for 7 years. I had the pleasure of meeting Mark Vonnegut in 1994, and a few friends recommended his book at the time. I had a very hard time finding the book. Copies were stolen from several libraries I tried, and I was outbid a couple of times on eBay! Finally, I found a copy in a library. I was truly so excited to start reading. So, now, after 7 years of trying, I'm ready to analyze this book. The book very effectively captures the feeling of being schizophrenic (I think!), with rushes of overwhelming thoughts following from the most mundane of stimuli, and a loss of all sense of time. Being in the medical profession, I've had the opportunity to meet several schizophrenic patients, and I now feel like I have some modicum of understanding of how they must feel. The book also offers a fascinating insight into the '60s counterculture, in which the authors' friends enable his mental illness for months, defending it as a form of free thinking, until he's undeniably ill. But I had a hard time getting through the book. It's mercifully short, but after 200 patients of psychotic thinking, I couldn't make myself read the last 30. Understandably, the story basically goes around in circles -- initial illness --> recovery --> relapse --> mild recovery --> worse relapse. There isn't really any sense of progression. In some ways, it reminded me of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Beautifully evocative of a certain era and subculture, but after ambling back and forth across the country a few times, I had had enough!
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating first-person recollection of insanity
Review: I'll be honest with you: I read Mark Vonnegut's book because he is Kurt Vonnegut's son. The elder Mr. Vonnegut mentions it one of his books (I don't remember which one, but I'm pretty sure it's Fates Worse Than Death, or maybe Timequake), and I probably would never have picked it up (or even heard of it) otherwise. That said, it is a fascinating and very delightful book, full of insight and well worth reading. Not many books tackle the admittedly difficult issue of describing insanity from the inside out (i.e., in the form of a first-person recollection), and this book is truly useful for those looking for such a work. It's hard to imagine anyone doing it better. I can see this as a practical "must read" for medical professionals looking to identify more closely with their patients, or for anyone who just wants a more personal account of the subject matter than that often offered by dry, sterile medical textbooks. Mark's writing style is quite good, but also highly personal. He doesn't seem aloof or like somebody with whom we can't identify (as many people who have experienced mental illnesses inevitably do): he seems like just one of us. The emotions and problems he was going through are certainly things that many of us can relate to (especially those of us who lived through the times that the the book describes) - although the cause for his schizophrenia was never, of course, fully discovered, a lot of things, as Mark says, "happened all at once": his steady girlfriend cheating on him, his parents breaking up, his father becoming famous. Although Mark's writing style is nothing like his father's, the two do share a similar sense of humor. This, coupled with the delightfully personal aspect of the prose, makes this a great read for those interested in its subject matter. Reccommended.
Rating:
Summary: Eden Xpress
Review: It was a total accident that I read this book. I was staying with my aunt and uncle in Ohio during the summer, both of them were thrift store hounds and would buy hundreds of penny books at a time at the closeout thrift stores. One day as we're heading home, my uncle hands me a book. I look up at him and say, "Who's Mark Vonnegut?" he smacks himself on the head and that was pretty much the end of that. Later in the week they took my to their cabin in the mountains. Since I am not the outdoorsey type I read the entire book there out of boredom. But I was amazed, it was a wonderful book. Living in a hippie comune, battling mental illness, it was a genuinely well written book. I can't believe it's out of print, it's worth reading as much of any of his dad's books.
Rating:
Summary: A hard-to-find Gem
Review: Perhaps eclipsed by his more famous father, Mark Vonnegut has never received the recognition he deserves for this fine work. Courageous, honest and at times extremely funny, Mark tells his tale of madness without a hint of the pretension that often creeps into such works. Especially interesting is the way he tries to reconcile his schizophrenia with the hippie lifestyle he was living in the 60's, when many thought the line between sanity and madness was nonexistant at best, and that "madness is a sane response to an insane society." After a prolonged hell where he lost the ability to eat, sleep, or have a moment's peace, Mark ended up embracing and being helped by good old fashioned square western medicine, without losing the depth or sincerity of his countercultural leanings. His evocation of the experience of madness itself outstrips anything I have ever read on the topic. A very good book.
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