Mother-son duo Laurette McCook and Jake McCook offer readers a heartbreaking glimpse of Jake’s struggles with schizophrenia, penned as back-and-forth journal entries shared between the two. “There is no one who is treated with less dignity than the mentally ill,” Laurette writes, a declaration that becomes appallingly evident as she recounts the years of missed diagnoses, medication trials, and hospitalizations that Jake and his family toiled through before discovering clinicians and treatments that granted them painstaking progress. Both mother and son examine the early years before his diagnosis, into his young adulthood, through the lens of their hard-won, incremental victories against this devastating disease.
Throughout, Laurette emphasizes the crucial role that family plays for loved ones with chronic mental health concerns: “You will become the expert on your loved one’s well-being.” Her devotion to Jake’s care shines as a brilliant thread of their abiding connection, buoying him in moments of darkness while gently confronting his needs, all against the backdrop of his yearning to be an independent adult, unfettered from schizophrenia’s agonizing hold. Jake’s lifelong creativity affords him outlets for his emotions alongside several job opportunities, as he pours his energy into video editing and art, all while learning to cope with addiction, paranoia, and “a subterranean beast” that “haunts his days and nights.”
“Hope will be your driving force” Laurette voices, as she details the family’s exhaustive efforts to coordinate and master Jake’s treatment needs while still finding time to nurture their attachment. Jake’s writing is brutally raw, an unflinching rendering of his battles, as are Laurette’s reflections on the barriers to getting Jake the help he needs (insurance funding is a tremendous roadblock, alongside Laurette’s efforts to protect and guide Jake being labeled as “enabling”). This is as much a portrait of a loving family as it is a call to action for mental health treatment reform.
Takeaway: A mother and son’s touching, insightful story of a schizophrenia diagnosis.
Comparable Titles: Vince Granata’s Everything Is Fine, Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett’s The Quiet Room.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
Kirkus Review
THE CLIFFS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA Jake McCook and Laurette McCook BookBaby (246 pp.)$17.99 paperback ISBN: 9798350925968 December 15, 2023 BOOK REVIEWMcCook and his mother recall their joint struggle with his schizophrenia in this memoir. While in preschool, at only 4 years old, Jake McCook displayed such remarkable focus his teacher noticed and recommended, to his parents’ dismay, that he be put on medication. Laurette McCook saw her son as quirkily eccentric and impressively creative, not the bearer of some treatable dysfunction. As he grew older, though, he showed more troubling signs: “Crippling social anxiety,” paranoia, and panic attacks becameincreasingly common. Sometimes, he was afraid to eat food he was convinced was poisoned, and he believed that there were spies scrutinizing his life— terrifying fears chillingly related by the authors. During his teens, Jake began to self-medicate with alcohol, and by the age of 21 he was a heavy drinker, alcohol consumption being the only way he knew to quiet the ceaseless turmoil in his own mind.Finally, Jake was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a search for an effective cocktail of drugs to stabilize his behavior began, as did Laurette’soften frustrating quest to make sure he took those drugs and refrained from drinking. The authors relay their parallel tales in turns, eachcontributing a series of generally brief meditations, the totality of which add up to an extraordinary look into the disease and the challenge of its management. Here Jake reflects on the most daunting aspect of schizophrenia—its incurability: “The absolute permanence of schizophrenia is a nightmare. I can’t imagine having to deal with it my entire life. I go to sleep with schizophrenia, and I wake up with schizophrenia. This is on a loopin my head, and I can’t believe the power it has over me.” Laurette’s side of the story—her combination of bottomless hope and “parental PTSD”—is equally poignant. This is a captivating story, one as instructive as it is dramatically powerful and as heartbreaking as it is inspiring. An unflinchingly realistic look at a little-understood disease.
