I read Imagining Robert, My Brother, Madness, and Survival by Jay Neugeboren for neighborhood and neighborly reasons. Its author is a 1955 graduate of fabled Erasmus Hall High School (I was class of 1956). Much of the story takes place in the area of Brooklyn now called Lefferts Gardens. Walkable, or at least bicyclable, from East 9 Street.
It's a sad tale. Younger brother Robert went seriously off the psychological rails in his late teen years. Older brother Jay relentlessly chronicles his brother's lifetime of struggles. It becomes clear that modern medicine does not offer any remedy or hope to people with Robert's illnesses. The system relies on ineffective drugs and ineffective therapies and what amounts to involuntary imprisonment. It's a painful, discouraging history.
And it's also a good and moving book. Very sincere and very emotional. I confess to dropping an occasional tear.
And yet I don't know whether it's right to expose a loved one to such public scrutiny. I myself wouldn't have made that choice. But I empathize with Neugeboren's tale, inasmuch as I know from personal experience that therapies for some forms of mental decay are no better now than they were during the Darkest Ages.
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