Growing up Bipolar

In his new memoir, Montague-based poet David Lovelace describes daily life with a family tortured by mental illness. He spoke with Rachel Deahl about writing the book, Hollywood's interest, and his current state of mind.

(Photograph by Fred Collins) David Lovelace's raw new memoir is about growing up surrounded by mental illness.

FORTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD POET David Lovelace has seen more than his fair share of hospital wards. He has suffered from bipolar disorder his whole life, as have both of his parents and his one brother - only a sister, the Peggy named in the excerpt on the facing page, escaped mental illness. In Scattershot: My Bipolar Family, the Hamilton native writes about falling into madness, and how he managed to come back from the brink.

You've suffered crippling effects from bipolar disorder for much of your life. Were you looking to simply tell your story with this memoir, or are you hoping there's a specific take-away for people who are also directly affected by the disease?
Both. It's a very treatable disease, yet it's still the most lethal of the mental illnesses. One thing I was hoping to do with the book is say, hey, I have the disease and I'm taking lithium and I wrote a book. I'm poet. And I'm all right.

Your father was a preacher and your mother is also very religious. Was their handling of the disease - by largely ignoring it - simply a sign of the times, or do you think their faith played a role?
Both. It was a different time. When Prozac hit suddenly, it wasn't just Cuckoo's Nest. It was, all right, I feel down, so maybe I'll go see my doctor. But that didn't exist until the '80s. Still, it was my parents' reaction to couch it in religious terms. With the combination combination of those two things, I didn't get any help.

Have your parents read the book?
My mother's pretty elderly now, but I talked to my mom about it, and she's proud. I told her she might not want to read it because it's pretty difficult stuff , and she's OK with that.

And your dad?
He hasn't read it, either. I think he's conflicted. I think he's also proud of me, but I think he's anxious about it. What I told him is that it's a loving book, and it looks square on at something he's never really wanted to look at.

But the reality is pretty harsh - it's hard to sympathize with a father staying in bed for a year.
I guess what makes it this whole family thing is that it's so genetic, and I have this legacy from my dad, and I see a lot of him in me. And I'm glad. I really admire my father.

But his crippling depression must have been frustrating.
It was. He stayed in bed for years. Years. That made everyone pretty angry. Depression is totally infuriating to watch someone struggle with - even if you've had it yourself. But the fact that my father never spoke of it - it just finally ebbed away and he started to function again - that's large part of why I wrote the book. If there's anger in the book, that's the kernel of it. It's like, OK, this is stuff you didn't want to talk about, but I need to talk about it.

Departed screenwriter William Monahan has expressed interest in the book, yes?
Yes, Monahan is interested. Bill went to Gloucester High School with my wife, Roberta, and stayed at my place the summer he wrote his novel. I sent him the first chapters of the book, and he loved it. He roped in [Leonardo] DiCaprio, and they're busy courting studios. In short, the rights haven't yet been optioned. It's a bit intoxicating and unreal, considering Hollywood, but I'm staying focused on my writing.

In this excerpt from Scattershot, Lovelace writes about a period in 1983, a few years before he, his brother, and his father were all committed.

MY FATHER AND I WERE LIKE DRUNKEN SAILORS. I staggered the decks while my dad lay passed out in his bunk. Before long I took to my room and began sliding down. I hid for over a week until my brother barged in and shook me. "Dave, you got to get up. You got to do something. Don't just lie around. Please." He looked like he might cry and I sat up. "Dad's been lying in his bed for a year. He's been lying there since I was a sophomore. He doesn't even try." He walked to my window and snapped up the shade.

I squinted and said, "I know, Jon. I know all about it. It's awful."

"You don't know. You haven't been here. Mom can't handle it. Get up, Dave. Please."

"All right," I said. "All right, I will but I can't talk right now. I just can't." I turned to the wall and pulled my knees up. I closed my eyes. Jon pulled the door shut. I was a [mess] and my brother an orphan. Jon was adrift and I couldn't help him. Peggy lived in Chicago and mom did everything now. She woke Jon for school; she fed him breakfast. She picked him up from his games and from practices and fed him again. Mom managed because there was no one else left, just this frail little bird with her two hollow shells.

Dad had taken a paid leave of absence from the seminary and they were kind enough to call it a sabbatical. Mom fielded all the calls from his students. She went to Dad's office and found their old, ungraded term papers. She explained he was sick to his colleagues and to the trustees. "We don't really know. He's just exhausted," she said, but she knew. She knew how it was. My father was fading. He had joined in her sickness and so he was to her now, lost to all of us. Mom took a job as a home health aide, her first job in 30 years. She spent her days bathing the old, sick, and dying, then she came home and cooked dinners her husband refused. She went to bed alone with him, wrapped herself in his stale sheets and she prayed.

My father stopped listening to music: All he needed was the machine hum of his dehumidifier - white noise in a black room. He couldn't bear to hear us move through the house. He used an old coffee pot for his bedpan now and never came out until the house had gone dark. He thawed frozen shrimp in our sink and ate them with crackers. He watched television, drank wine, and hid his empty bottles in the garage. He abandoned our mother, that's how we saw it, and my siblings and I wanted to scream. I wanted to stand up, kick Dad out of bed, and show him how it was done. My rage pushed me out from my room. I didn't know shrinks or medicines or therapists. I just got angry, got up and walked for hours through the woods.

Excerpt from Scattershot: My Bipolar Family, by David Lovelace. Published by arrangement with Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright (c)2008 by David Lovelace.

Rachel Deahl is an editor at Publishers Weekly in New York. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.