by Emma Forrest ~ Random House Canada ~ Review: Halifax Herald, March 2011
Emma Forrest began writing a column for the (UK) Sunday Times at the precocious age of 16. At 21, she was writing for The Guardian. She published her first novel at 22, moved to New York and fell in love with a movie star she calls GH, her Gypsy Husband. The world was at her feet.
But the reality of Forrest’s life was far from idyllic. She was sinking deep into mental illness and one day she realized that “her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity, past the warm waters of weird to those cold, deep patches of sea where people lose their lives.” Bulimia and cutting were her way to feel, to bring her back to the present and she slid into a spiral of destruction and self hate that almost claimed her life.
Forrest was lucky. She found Dr. R, a psychiatrist of enormous compassion and wisdom, “a man who though I never saw him outside one small room, believed that life is vast and worth living.” He is the voice in her head, her connection to sanity.
As Forrest fights to gain solid ground, her perspective begins to shift. The men who had loved and left her – GH, Dr. R. “... were good and kind to me, they loved me and I loved them back and the shock at the finish holds no wisdom.”
Forrest’s writing has a flavour of Lara Jefferson’s compelling memoir, These are my Sisters. Jefferson was committed to a mid-west insane asylum in the early 50's and decided that her way back to the world was to write her way sane. She was successful.
Forrest’s memoir is equally compelling. In spite of the craziness of the places she fights to rise above, her writing is witty and cool. Actually, Forrest is cool, and even in her darkest days she manages to keep an engaging humour in her prose as she writes her way back from the edge.
Emma Forrest has been writing since she was a child. She is a columnist, the author of four books and a successful screenwriter. She lives in LA.
