Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Memoirs
Weblink
http://www.melodymoezzi.com/cont …

HALDOL AND HYACINTHS

Melody Moezzi

A Bipolar Life

With candor and humor, a manic-depressive Iranian-American Muslim woman chronicles her experiences with both clinical and cultural bipolarity.

Melody Moezzi was born to Persian parents at the height of the Islamic Revolution and raised amid a vibrant, loving, and gossipy Iranian diaspora in the American heartland. When, at eighteen, she began battling a severe physical illness, her community stepped up, filling her hospital rooms with roses, lilies, and Iranian hyacinths. But when she attempted suicide and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, there were no flowers. Despite severalstays in psychiatric hospitals, bombarded with tranquilizers, mood-stabilizers, and antipsychotics, she was encouraged to keep her illness a secret—by both her family and an increasingly callous and indifferent medical establishment. Refusing to be ashamed, Moezzi became an outspoken advocate, determined to fight the stigma surrounding mental illness and reclaim her life along the way. Both an irreverent memoir and a rousing call to action, HALDOL AND HYACINTHSis the moving story of a woman who refused to become torn across cultural and social lines. Moezzi reports from the front lines of the no-man’s land between sickness and sanity, and the Midwest and the Middle East. A powerful, funny, and poignant narrative told through a unique and fascinating cultural lens, HALDOL AND HYACINTHS is a tribute to the healing power of hope, humor, and acceptance. Melody Moezzi is an activist, attorney, writer, and award-winning author. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is a UN Global Expert, a blogger for TheHuffington Post and Ms., a commentator for NPR’s All ThingsConsidered, and a columnist and blogger for Bipolar Magazine. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications worldwide.

Available products
Book Published 2013-08-01 by Avery
Book Published 2013-08-01 by Avery

Comments

A dazzling flower with poisonous thorns, Melody Moezzi’s memoir describes formidable, twin conflicting identities. Bipolar, she wrestles frenzied, Hula-Hooping highs and psychotic, suicidal lows. Iranian American, she finds Muslims scarce in the Bible Belt where she grew up, and learns that in Iran, there isn’t even a word for ‘bipolar.’ Her struggle to keep these forces in balance is an immense task, and she tells her story with confidence and a fabulously wry sense of humor.

[Moezzi] learned not just to survive but to thrive and has become a voice for both manic-depressives and Muslim Americans.

Haldol and Hyacinths is like the brawling, big-hearted, and hilarious little sister of Darkness Visible and The Noonday Demon. But Melody Moezzi is no imitator and she doesn't write in anyone's shadow. She stands alone and speaks her brilliant, fierce, inimitable mind, and we're better for it.

Affecting...[Moezzi’s] vivid descriptions of being pulled against her will in a swirl of impulsivity, hallucinations, and paranoia are riveting. . . . A poetic portrait of life on the lines of sanity and a mind on the edge of cultures. Read more...

Melody Moezzi pulls no punches. A big brain and a big heart inform this courageous and often hilarious memoir which crosses cultures and breaks stigmas—there is, quite simply, nothing like it. Nothing as smart, nothing as frank, nothing as informative.

[Moezzi’s] candor about her experiences in and with the medical establishment is bracing. . . . A bold, courageous book by a woman who transforms mental illness into an occasion for activism. Read more...

Intelligent, accurate, entertaining, culturally relevant, and a little sassy…Haldol and Hyacinths fills an important and heretofore unfilled niche. Read more...

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