the idea: write an honest book about teenage depression and suicidal thoughts

the ideator: Ned Vizzini

I go through binges with my various art forms and recently I’ve been on a writing binge.  When I feel the writing urge coming, I also do my best to read because when you’re a writer nothing is as inspiring as a good book.

I picked Vizzini’s book, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, up off the shelf when I went to Bestseller’s Cafe in Medford to see if they had put Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something out yet.  Being my frugal self, I wasn’t sure if I should really spend the money on the book.  Now I’m glad I did.

Vizzini brings alive the struggle of his main character, Craig Gliner, with a blunt, refreshing narrative about teen depression.  Vizzini writes about Craig’s 5 day stay in an adult psychiatric ward during his freshman year of college.  The depth of the writing can only come from experience, and indeed Vizzini did spend his own five days in a psychiatric ward.

What Vizzini does in the novel, much as John Green did in The Fault in Our Stars, is humanize an incomprehensible situation.  While kids with cancer, the subject of Green’s book, tend to be turned into heros, kids with depression get a much wider range of reactions.  Some people are truly empathetic, others are downright patronizing.  The character’s in It’s Kind of a Funny Story run the gambit, both supporting and undermining the valiant efforts of the main character.

If you or anyone you know has ever suffered depression, go pick up this book.  At the very least, it will give you something to talk about.  At best, it will give you a new understanding of an often stigmatized mental illness.