BOOK REVIEW: He Wanted the Moon

This is one of the most unique books I have read in a long time. He Wanted the Moon, by Mimi Baird, is at the same time a biography, a psychiatric case study, and the lifelong achievement of a daughter's goal to connect with the father she never knew. 

Dr. Perry Baird, a noted dermatologist, had his life demolished by bipolar disorder, or, as it was called back in the 1940s, manic depressive psychosis. A multi-honored graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Baird had a successful private practice and a young family when he began to experience manic episodes that led to repeated forced hospitalizations. Subjected to brutal treatment in several hospitals--including weeks of continuous immobilization in ice cold wraps and straightjackets--he lost his wife and family through divorce. While experiencing the loss of colleagues' friendships and the revocation of his medical license, Baird nevertheless sought to write down the internal narrative of his illness and treatments so as to preserve it for medical history. More than anything, he sought to help scientists understand the manic experience so that a cure could be found. He left a jumbled manuscript that records his life during a particularly difficult eight month period in 1944-45. 

Meanwhile, Baird's oldest daughter Mimi was seeking to understand why her father went away and never returned. Her mother divorced Dr. Baird early on in his psychiatric struggles and remained silent when Mimi inquired as to where her father had disappeared. It wasn't until her 50s that Mimi found the clues that would unlock the story of her life, and over the next 20 years she would painstakingly complete her father's work. 

As someone who worked for nearly 20 years in a psychiatric hospital, I found this book particularly compelling. It is sad to read about the outdated methods of dealing with bipolar disorder before lithium was discovered (just shortly after Baird's struggles with the disease), especially the prolonged, cruel physical restraint. I find the subjective accounts of Dr. Baird's manic episodes to resonate strongly with what I experienced in working with such patients. And the threads of this father-daughter tapestry add a dimension to the book that wraps it up in a fullness of emotion. 

I received a free copy of this book for review purposes from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers.