Madness and Me

Book excerpt: For many, madness is something read about in books or seen on TV--something scary, foreign, and impossible to understand. For Lisa Nugent and her twin sister Shell, however, madness was impossible to avoid--it was home. Growing up in Essex in the seventies and eighties, Lisa learned quickly that her family wasn't like her classmates' families--their mothers were friendly, fierce, or demure women. They had their quirks, but they didn't assault their husbands, and their frenzied screams didn't chase their children out of the house in the middle of the night. Not like her mother. Now, for the first time, Lisa relives those troubled years, recounting her development from a nervous, shy, and friendless child through to the woman she is today. Madness and Me isn't just a memoir about surviving an abusive, paranoid parent--it's about the importance of family, the pain of loss, and learning to love even when it's the hardest thing in the world to do. A work of tenderness, dignity, and humour, Madness and Me is sure to appeal to lovers of memoir and drama alike.