Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania - Hardcover

Behrman, Andy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375503587 ISBN 13: 9780375503580

Publisher: Random House Inc, 2002

Synopsis

Electroboy is an emotionally frenzied memoir that reveals with kaleidoscopic intensity the terrifying world of manic depression. For years Andy Behrman hid his raging mania behind a larger-than-life personality. He sought a high wherever he could find one and changed jobs the way some people change outfits: filmmaker, PR agent, art dealer, stripper - whatever made him feel like a cartoon character, invincible and bright. Misdiagnosed by psychiatrists and psychotherapists for years, his condition exacted a terrible price: out-of-control euphoric highs and tornadolike rages of depression that put his life in jeopardy.
Ignoring his crescendoing illness, Behrman struggled to keep up appearances, clinging to the golden-boy image he had cultivated in his youth. But when he turned to art forgery, he found himself the subject of a scandal lapped up by the New York media, then incarcerated, then under house arrest. And for the first time the golden boy didn't have a ready escape hatch from his unraveling life. Ingesting handfuls of antidepressants and tranquilizers and feeling his mind lose traction, he opted for the last resort: electroshock therapy.

About this title

Review:

"Behrman writes so vividly that his turbulent mood swings are brought to the page unnervingly intact...This true story is remarkable" -- The Times

"Electroboy is the story of a very modern lost soul" -- Sunday Telegraph

...a humbling and, in the end, rather uplifting read -- Melanie McGrath in The Evening Standard

...his tales of drugs, sex'n'spending sprees are as fascinating and as repellent as a road accident -- The Face

Behrman's chronicle of his descent into madness reads like a kind of Rake's Progress for the late 20th century -- Matt Seaton in Esquire Magazine

The book...is compulsively readable...Electroboy is the story of a very modern lost soul -- Anthony Daniels in the Sunday Telegraph

This true story is remarkable. -- Jerome Boyd Maunsell in The Times

From the Publisher:

"Electroboy is like a non-fiction version of American Psycho...His life is a metaphor for the ‘80s – everything is overblown and out of control. But Electroboy is also a sensitive account of manic depression – medication, analysis, an obsession with suicide and, finally, electric shock treatment. This fusion is pure genius." Dazed & Confused

"Andy Behrman’s Electroboy truly is an astonishing piece of writing...That it really happened to the author is, quite frankly, astounding, tragic and hilarious by turns...even sober and sane he is totally outrageous...He makes Elizabeth Wurtzel, America’s queen of drugs and depression, look like Mary Poppins" Sunday Express

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0375503587
• ISBN 13: 9780375503580
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 277