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There are currently 42 member reviews
for He Wanted the Moon
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Julia A. (New York, NY)
A Must Read for so Many Reasons
This book left me with so many conflicting and complementary emotions that I hardly know where to begin. Mimi Baird's quest to uncover the mystery of her father's life and illness was a multi-year project the completion of which should bring her much satisfaction. At times sad, funny, thought-provoking, enraging, tragic, horrifying, exhausting, and dare I say therapeutic, this is a book that must be read by anyone who cares about the history of medicine, the trajectory of mental health care, and less academically, family history. One of the tragedies of this bio-history is that Dr. Baird's early research into a biochemical cause of manic depression/bipolar disorder was stymied by his own illness; one can only speculate how much sooner the connection would have become widely known if he had been able to continue uninterrupted.
Alternating among Perry Baird's own words, his medical records, and Mimi Baird's narrative, the book employs a different typeface for each, so that the reader is never confused for a moment about who is speaking. That's a novel approach that I wish more publishers and editors would employ.
I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like for Mimi to be deprived of her father at the tender age of six, not by death, but by an illness of which her mother refused to speak. That she finally came to the decision to find out more, late in her adulthood (she's currently 75) and spent so many years researching and writing is a gift to her father, her family, herself, and her readers.
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Ann W. (New York, NY)
Empathy and understanding the impaired mind: "To live without hope is to Cease to live"
Dr. Perry Baird, a brilliant, privileged physician, is the subject of his daughter's search for understanding who her father was. This book is a painful read with Dr. Baird's description of the horrors of the treatment of the mentally ill with straight jackets and ice cold water treatment. Acknowledging that in the throes of acute psychosis, these people and I emphasize people could be difficult to treat, they were and are more frequently dehumanized as less than worthy and somehow responsible for their behaviors. Ms. Baird's journey to find out about his father, his tragic end was a very thoughtful read. However, as a psychologist, it left me with many questions. Severe Mental illness usually results in poverty, no matter where one started.
Those suffering from mental illness are still victims.
I read her book but at times, it was not easy to keep going. Dr. Baird is joined by Dr. John Nash, the poets, Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton, who all struggled with severe bipolar disorders. Lowell in "Waking in Blue" offers another view. This subject of how we as a society treat the mentally ill remains a very relevant topic.
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Amy M. (Southlake, TX)
He Wanted the Moon
Thanks to BookBrowse for the ARC of this book. I learned a lot about people suffering mental disorders and how their families learn to cope with episodes of illness. I think all adult readers will enjoy this book and feel great empathy for Dr. Baird as well as his family and friends who cared about him.
It was an informative book about the state of mental hospitals how they treated and mistreated patients, due to experimentation because of lack of knowledge about certain conditions. I was glad that Mimi found answers to her past and about her father. I am glad I had the chance to read this book.
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Anne G. (Austin, TX)
He Wanted the Moon
It is very powerful to read the words of a man in the depths of a psychotic episode. At moments sounding very rational and at others he is completely lost. Mimi Baird at 75 years of age is finally able to acquaint herself with the father she lost to mental illness. Reading the accounts of Dr Baird's treatment, brutal and inhumane, was a grave reminder of how far the study of mental illness and psychoses has come.
Perry Baird was a world renowned dermatologist who was stricken with "manic depressive psychosis" at a young age. His promising medical career faltered and was ultimately stripped from him while he was confined at the Westborough State Hospital. It was beyond heartbreaking to read of Baird's efforts to control the disease he knew was overtaking him. He writes, "I pray to God that in the future I shall be able to remember that once one has crossed the line from the normal walks of life into a psychopathic hospital, one is separated from friends and relatives by walls thicker than stone; walls of prejudice and superstition."
He wanted the moon but fell far short due to a disease that was only just beginning to be understood. Baird was perhaps the leading researcher on treatments that might have saved his own life. This is a powerful and personal account that will appeal to anyone who wishes to understand more about the impact of manic depressive psychosis now more commonly known as bi-polar disorder.
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Eileen Wa.
Very Personal
This book was a very personal journey for me. In the 60's I had a clinical rotation in a mental institution and observed the scenes that Dr. Baird described. Also, at that time, had a family member going through the same journey. With the introduction of lithium, this family member benefited from the biomedical research that Dr.
Baird was interested in.
I can see that this would be a special interest book for those interested in mental illness. I admire Mimi Baird for her courage to want and tell her story, however disturbing it may be.
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Maggie A., New Jersey
Eloquent and disturbing
This short, interesting book brings to light the experiences of a physician whose promising career was ruined by bipolar disorder back in the 1940s. Medications like Lithium were not available at that time, and it was common for manic phase patients to be hospitalized and brutally "treated" with methods like being tied to a bed wearing a straitjacket for long periods of time.
Dr. Perry Baird kept an eloquent journal of his experiences, writing even when he was hospitalized and experiencing symptoms. Most of the first part of the book consists of this journal.
In the second part of the book, Baird's daughter Mimi describes how she found her father's long-lost writings, and she tells us about his early accomplishments and later struggles.
Baird's journal is eloquent and heartbreaking. He was a gifted physician who had professional insight into what was happening to him. Occasionally the journal deteriorates into odd jottings such as, "Two red chickens out in front. Danger, danger, danger," but most of it is clear and engaging. Perhaps the most remarkable section is Baird's account of his successful escape from a mental institution during a lull in his symptoms.
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Donna T. (Tacoma, WA)
Interesting subject, monotone writting
This book could have been great. But it came across as dispassionate and cold. It was a good look into how we as a society treated (both medically and personally) the mentally ill during most of the 20th century. It's descriptions of his treatments should have left me disturbed and angry, instead I was analyzing why the doctors felt this was the right choice. I should have felt sympathy for his daughter who spent years not seeing or knowing what was going on with her father. Instead I felt disappointed that she took the obscure answers her mother gave with out pressing harder. I did feel that I gained some understanding of how our knowledge and treatment of the mentally ill has thankfully changed.
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