Neal Shusterman's Blog - Posts Tagged "mental-illness"
CHALLENGER DEEP Is Out Today!
Today’s the day! Challenger Deep is here!
I can’t wait to hear what you think of Challenger Deep. This book comes from a very personal place for me. It’s inspired by my son Brendan’s experiences with schizophrenia, and his artwork—which is interspersed throughout the text—really brings the novel to another level. If you or a loved one has ever struggled with mental illness, I hope you’ll find something familiar and perhaps even comforting in Challenger Deep.
Here’s what The Horn Book wrote in its review:
If you’ve had a chance to read Challenger Deep already, please comment on this post and share your thoughts! I would love you hear what you think.
By the way, I’ll be celebrating the release tonight at the Barnes & Noble in Tigard, Oregon, right outside of Portland. There will be a reading, Q&A, and signing. Get the details here. Hope to see you there!
Click here to learn more about Challenger Deep
I can’t wait to hear what you think of Challenger Deep. This book comes from a very personal place for me. It’s inspired by my son Brendan’s experiences with schizophrenia, and his artwork—which is interspersed throughout the text—really brings the novel to another level. If you or a loved one has ever struggled with mental illness, I hope you’ll find something familiar and perhaps even comforting in Challenger Deep.
Here’s what The Horn Book wrote in its review:
This novel is a challenge to the reader from its first lines: author Shusterman takes us into the seemingly random, rambling, and surreal fantasies of fifteen-year-old Caden Bosch (yes, it makes sense to associate him with artist Hieronymus) as mental illness increasingly governs his consciousness. Fantasies about a pirate ship ruled by an abrasive one-eyed captain and his parrot, its deck swarming with feral brains (for example) commingle with Caden’s somewhat more comprehensible accounts of family and school, until his parents have him admitted to a psychiatric ward. As he responds to drugs and therapy, Caden’s fantasies become increasingly transparent, showing themselves to be imaginative, ungovernable versions of his hospital psychiatrist, Dr. Poirot, and his fellow patients. The disorientation Shusterman evokes through the first-person narration requires some patience, but it’s an apt, effective way to bring readers into nightmarish anxiety and despair—and out of it. Caden’s narrative is all the more engulfing because of the abundant wit and creativity evident in the eccentric specifics of his perceptions. Clearly written with love, the novel is moving; but it’s also funny, with dry, insightful humor. Illustrations by the author’s son Brendan, drawn during his own time in the depths of mental illness, haunt the story with scrambling, rambling lines, tremulousness, and intensity.
If you’ve had a chance to read Challenger Deep already, please comment on this post and share your thoughts! I would love you hear what you think.
By the way, I’ll be celebrating the release tonight at the Barnes & Noble in Tigard, Oregon, right outside of Portland. There will be a reading, Q&A, and signing. Get the details here. Hope to see you there!
Click here to learn more about Challenger Deep
