Manic: A Memoir

One minute Terri Cheney is crouched beneath her desk in her Beverly Hills law firm, paralyzed by depression; the next she is flying kites off the edge of a cliff in Big Sur, in a violent thunderstorm. One minute she's overdosing on painkillers and tequila, the next she's falling madly in love. Bright, beautiful, and highly successful, Cheney, like ten million other Americans, suffers from bipolar disorder, a terrible secret that nearly killed her.

In this harrowing yet ultimately hopeful memoir, she reveals the manifestations and effects of this devastating illness on herself and those around her, as she struggles between the dark depths of depression and the reckless heights of mania. Manic is an unforgettable, mood-swing-to-mood-swing roller-coaster ride of a life lived in extremes.

"Cheney brilliantly brings us along on her haunting and riveting journey of bipolar disorder . . . Manic is extremely powerful." — Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania

"A gut-churning ride." — Los Angeles Times

"Filled with gorgeous writing . . .Echoes of William Styron abound." — Demitri F. Papolos. M.D. and Janice Papolos, authors of The Bipolar Child

"More than a train-wreck tearjerker, the memoir draws strength from salient observations, startlingly lucid descriptions." — Publishers Weekly

"Cheney . . .writes with passionate clarity about depression and the lure of suicide but with especially keen intensity about mania . . ." — Boston Globe