He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him

by Mimi Baird, Eve Claxton

A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.

Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized.

Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage.

Fifty years after being told her father would forever be “ill” and “away,” Mimi Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. In time her fingers became stained with the lead of the pencil he had used to write his manuscript, as she devoted herself to understanding who he was, why he disappeared, and what legacy she had inherited. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the reaches of the mind and the redeeming power of a determined heart.

Soon to be a major motion picture, from Brad Pitt and Tony Kushner

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Psychology, Science, Mental Health, Medical

272 pages, Hardcover

First published February 17, 2015

About the author

Mimi Baird was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and is a graduate of Colby-Sawyer College. While working as a manager at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, she met a surgeon who had once known her father, which prompted her quest to finally understand her father's life and legacy. Her first book, He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him, was published in 2015.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A daughters quest to understand the father that literally disappeared from her life. In 1944, Doctor Percy Baird was confined to a mental institution after a sever episode of mania. Mimi was only six when he was no longer in the home and was only told by her mother, that he was away.

The first part of the book are all in her Father's writing, he penned down his experiences with his illness and his treatment at the institutions to which he was committed. What was amazing to me was how much he remembered, even while in his manic states. His brilliant mind was constantly at work.

The second half of the book was how his disappearance effected her life. Of what her and her sister and mothers life was without him. How she decided to find out more about him and the actions she took. The situation itself was heartbreaking but the book was not written emotionally. It was very clear and concise.

This was in 1944 and the treatment at these institutions were many times barbaric. Even if they didn't have the treatments available that we do now, it still seems to me that common sense would prevail and the realization that ice cold baths would not accomplish much medically. Although treatments help many today, the brain is still the area that is difficult to understand. The stigma about mental illness itself still prevails though there is small progress in that area. Though their are many new treatments it is still a hit and miss approach and many are still without treatment or at least effective treatment.

A very good book for those looking for a better understanding of the bi-polar, as reading Baird's own words about a brilliant man with a brilliant mind in the midst of mania are informative. Only by sharing these experiences by those effected, as Mimi does, will the stigma of mental illness be removed.

ARC from librarything.

[Josh Caporale · Rating 5 out of 5]

When shopping at River Road Books in Fair Haven, New Jersey, I came across some promising books in areas that I was certain would interest me. Then I came across He Wanted the Moon, read the back, and knew that this was something I had to buy. It was a remarkable decision! This is a text that left me thinking about the content beyond the text and as I write this, I am thinking about ways regarding the approaches I take to engage in further research about what Dr. Perry Baird was working on with his research on manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder) and in general, learning more about the condition at hand.

Mimi Baird writes about her father, Dr. Perry Baird, who was a dermatologist that was a gifted, brilliant student that became inclined to do research on the condition that was bringing him down in manic depression. Unfortunately, his condition led to multiple visits to institutions that would cause he great decline, losing his family (his wife, Gretta, and his daughters, Mimi and Catherine), his license to practice, his professional connections, his ability to research, and so much more. The way that this book was structured was spot on, for I really like Mimi's decision to begin with her father's very own account of being institutionalized and the events that took place from his instatement on February 20, 1944 and the months that succeeded this particular entry. Dr. Baird discusses the cruel treatment of being tied up in a straightjacket or in packs on random instances, his interaction with others that were also institutionalized, and gives us a firsthand account of what it is like to be in his shoes. Some of the things he said and did may sound like they are hard to believe, but he was straightforward and said things exactly as he felt, portraying the actions of both himself and those working in the institution with brutal honesty.

In the second part of the book, Mimi tells her story about what life was like without her father, her struggles between that and how her mother and stepfather developed an emotionally cold atmosphere for her and her sister (though Mimi was affected much greater), and the way things happened from her perspective. Years after her father's death and after marrying and having children, Mimi always wanted to learn more and was able to get in touch with relatives, doctors, and other sources in finding out so much of what she needed to know about her dad. Dr. Perry Baird's greatest feat was his pioneering research that he did on manic depression, where he was trying to find solutions to his condition. Unfortunately, in America, the solution to treat manic depression was through lobotomies, developed by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz, which was the treatment used on Dr. Baird. While it eased emotional issues, it had greater side effects and Dr. Baird was never the same, having died from a seizure that was a result.

I could not think of any rating to give this book besides a perfect five stars. This is something I feel that everybody needs to read and something that everybody needs to know about, for it will develop a greater understanding for bipolar disorder and those that are affected by it. I could not think of a more perfect arrangement than the one put together here with how we learn about Dr. Baird through his accounts and then through Mimi's research and I really liked how we got Dr. Baird's account first, for it really fit in a chronological sense. There are moments in this book that are dark and show some of the things Dr. Baird did that would be deemed as immoral, but the things that Dr. Baird had to endure throughout his life and in the institution were certainly immoral as well. One has to look at Dr. Baird's determination in everything he wanted to get accomplished and how all he really wanted was a greater opportunity to be understood.

It is hard to imagine how it has only been within the last fifty some odd years where we began to develop a greater understanding for those with disabilities, especially mental and learning disabilities. In many cases, these people were locked away from society and instead of being treated properly, they were tortured perpetually. This torture was not limited to direct tactics ranging from electric shock to restraints, but one that was interior, where others wanted nothing to do with those with disabilities or saw them as complete incapables. He Wanted the Moon reminds us that there is so much more we need to learn about any given individual before we can determine what their legacy shall be. While one could write Dr. Baird off as a madman, I see him as an important attribute to global medicine and a champion in going forward with the development of understanding bipolar disorder to a greater degree. While he never got to complete his research, his efforts are priceless.

A film adaptation is being made for this book where Tony Kushner is writing the script, while Brad Pitt is being slated to star in the leading role. This will definitely be something that brings me back to the movie theater if this takes place.

As for the book, I feel this is the book I wish more people were discussing and exploring. So many people I brought this up with were convinced to read it and to those people and everyone else, by all means pick it up and read it!

Here is my video review of this book from Literary Gladiators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2xdU...

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Harvard educated dermatologist Dr. Perry Biard, develops bipolar disorder, is institutionalized resulting in the loss of his family, friends and practice. It is 1944 and his disappearance is never explained to his six year old daughter, Mimi. For years denial and silence were maintained until a chance discussion with a doctor leads to information and opens the extraordinary journey Mimi takes to uncover what she can about her father.
He Wanted the Moon is written in two parts. The first from a long lost manuscript Dr. Biard wrote about his hospitalization, annotated with parts of his medical record. You can watch the progression of his illness as the manuscript changes from from understandable to chaotic and back again.
The second part describes Mimi’s years long quest to find out as much as she can about her father. She received the copy of the handwritten manuscript, kept by a cousin, when she was in her 50’s. It took another 20 years for her to complete her search and publish the book.
For me the most striking aspects of the book are that although treatment of people with major mental illness has come a long way there is still a long way to go and that the stigma of mental illness Dr. Biard experienced is still prevalent today

[Larnacouer de SH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Talihsizliklerin en büyüğü sanırım manik depresif hastalığından muzdarip bir birey olmak, üzerine hastalığın henüz bilinmediği haliyle tedavisi bulunmadığı bir zamana denk gelmek.

Okurken gerçekten kalbim kırıldı.
Aslında çok seviyorum, kütüphanenin rafından öylece çekilip "Gerçek hayat hikayesinden yola çıkılmış, okusak ya bunu..." diye alınan bir kitabın geride bıraktığı etkileri.

Bu kez o etki pek olumlu değildi ama en azından şükredecek sevinecek çok şeyimiz olduğunu her sayfada yeniden hatırlattı bu da yeter diye avutuyorum kendimi.

Gidip PDR okuyan arkadaşlarıma sırayla önereyim bunu.

Ben üzgün, sizsiniz mutlu yıllar.

20161231, Eskişehir.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: In composing this review, I have assumed the reader to have read the summary provided on the page on which this is posted, or, regardless of what information this page does or doesn't provide, or to have found out this book's general topic.

I was very excited to read He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him, and I was fortunate enough to win an advance edition (publication expected in February) through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers monthly giveaway program. Having finished the work, I have to say that author Mimi Baird met and then exceeded my high hopes; my five-star rating at the top of this review understates the value of this reading experience in my view.

In fact, I think Baird has created a vitally important work that should be among the books everyone should (hope and try to) read at some point in life. I found ideas presented and questions raised in this text that would make it especially valuable reading for any professional engaged in critical services to diverse populations -- doctors, lawyers and teachers come first to my mind. In sum, this book imparts rare wisdom the ignorance of which tangibly impoverishes our society and limits the quality of human life.

Given my wholehearted belief in the value of this read, I was somewhat surprised when to find Kirkus presenting a very different perspective in the recently published review of this book. The highlighted excerpt chosen to showcase the review's conclusions evidenced a much more circumscribed view
of the value to be found in these pages:"For Mimi Baird, the book serves as closure; for general readers, it's a sobering account of how little we knew and how much we still have to learn about mental illness—especially how not to treat it." This link connects to the complete review: http://goo.gl/36vUrh

Contrary to the implications of that assessment, Mimi Baird's book is more than an insightful discussion of a personal quest. The text consists in large part of her father's own writings; his story is not just uncovered as a set of events that document the behavior that typified the illness for which he was hospitalized, the medical "treatments" he received, and details of the staggering professional and social losses he experienced after hospitalization. As it turns out, Dr. Baird was not only an outstanding practitioner of medicine with peerless academic qualifications for his profession, he was a gifted writer who possessed rich insight into his experiences as a mental patient. His papers provide straightforward, clear and rational descriptions of manifold elements of his life during his hospitalization. I found that Baird never dramatized the hardships he experienced, but he did not soften dismal conclusions about the terrible circumstances that arose directly from his mental illness diagnosis and the medical establishment's conception of what that illness entailed.

Despite the rational presentation of Dr. Baird's observations to which the reader is privy, his attempts to relate details of his psychological experience in order to improve knowledge of the disease and find a path to better treatment were unsuccessful. In speaking of his own experience, this brilliant man was not credited by either his treating doctors or his friends and former colleagues in the medical profession. Catherine Mackinnon once wisely observed that power inheres in the ability to speak your truth and have it taken seriously by the wider community (unfortunately, I do not have the direct quotation available right now). There is an increasing amount of scholarship on the persistent powerlessness and substantial life limitations experienced by the mentally ill. Systemic flaws in the perspective on mental illness, present in society as a whole as well as within the medical/psychological professions, collectively create phenomena that have come to be described as sanism. This first-person narrative of sanism at work can do more to raise awareness about the warped perspective on mental illness that exists today and throughout Western history than any academic theory or historical review. However, I think a broader truth is to be found here, and this is what provides the basis for my belief in the great impact this book could have if read widely. Specifically, it seems everywhere I look people who can be found near either end of various spectrums of given human qualities and experiences, are routinely misunderstood and their truth is silenced. It's not always a minority that meets with this effect; I think the persistence of sexism for example is rooted in a similar social process, at least in part. This story of a great genius ignored by everyone has much to teach about the grievous harm that can be done when we fail to pay close attention to human differences -- whether in personal relationships, classrooms, courtrooms, or mental hospitals.

This is just one key reason why I heartily encourage others to read this book. The fact is it's a quick read that is packed with stories and insights that are rarely available, let alone in such a convenient way. Thanks for reading my thoughts; I hope they are helpful to you in some respect.

[Aviendha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manic Depresif teşhisi konan doktor Perry Baird yaşadıklarını, başkalarına umut olması amacıyla kayda alıyor. Kendi içinde zaman sapması yaşarken, başa çıktığı tüm o karmaşaya, kaosa, yalnızlığa dahil oluyoruz. "Böyle tedavi mi olur?" demekten kendinizi alamayacaksınız.

[W. Whalin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This compelling read has two clear parts. The first portion uses first person diary entries from a successful dermatologist Dr. Perry Baird who suffers from manic depression. The disease ends his medical career.

The second portion tells the inside story of a daughter's search (the author Mimi Baird) to know and understand her father. I found both the first part and the second portion a page-turner experience.

The title for this fascinating book comes from a neighbor who described Dr. Perry Baird to his daughter saying, "Your father, he couldn't help himself. You know, Mimi, he wanted the moon." (Page 208). I highly recommend this book.

[☼Bookish in Virginia☼ · Rating 4 out of 5]

HE WANTED THE MOON is an amazing book that has stuck with me months after I read it. I found the book to be educational --in an entertaining way-- and at times simply horrifying.

Now I rather imagine that you, like me, have run across some textbook entries or articles about the Manic-Depressive state. I don't know about you but I feel that Depression is the easier part of that equation to understand. Depression-alone is a common enough ailment. Manic though is not common. Yet, I thought I had a handle on it.

Wrong.

I have to tell you that in all my reading the authors never truly conveyed to me the imminent danger that the patient was in, nor how a person's reasoning was effected. Dr. Baird's writings were like was a sound slap up-side the head. I had an aha-moment which left me feeling pretty embarrassed about how ignorant I had been**.

**[I'm in no way claiming to understand the spectrum of manifestations that these diseases might express; only that I'm a little less clueless.]

The book begins with an introduction by the doctor's daughter. Mimi Baird then gives us her father's writings, each section introduced with a brief entry that puts the records into context. Through this story telling I feel we readers are given a unique view into the Manic-Depressive state, as well as an idea of how the disease was treated and socially handled in the past.

Much of the writing demonstrates how the disease colored Dr. Baird's sense of reality. He talked at one point, for example, about how honest he was. Just after he wrote about how he had lied.

In other places he writes about how he was treated by family and friends, doctors and staff. And some of this was pretty horrific. I will never understand how anyone could think that waterboarding a patient would be helpful. Nor how being tied in a straight-jacket could be a cure. It just amazes me at how primitive, and dare I say, sadistic, physicians could be. Being retained in a room, yes. Being straight jacketed and then wrapped in sheets dipped in cold water is just evil.
.
.
In reading this book I tried to imagine who might like it best. This is not your usual sort of read but something very special. And I very much appreciate and thank Mimi for sharing how her father 's life was destroyed by this disease, and how it ultimately effected her life. This is a remarkable set of records that I think might appeal to those with an interest in disease and medicine, and those with an interest in history and unusual biographies.


_review copy

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a love story and tribute to the author's father and a heartbreaking first hand account of his experiences as a patient in a mental hospital. The author has combined her father's writings, his medical records and her personal memories to create a loving tribute to a brilliant but mentally ill man.

Anyone with an interest in mental health will find this a worthy read. Perry Baird's descriptions of his physical and emotional isolation from friends and family who might have offered some support and the cruel and barbaric treatment he received from so-called medical professionals at the time make this a difficult story to read.

Some of Perry's descriptions about himself reminded me of James Fallon's descriptions of his inner thoughts and perceptions of his own truthfulness in his book 'The Psychopath Inside'. Baird's account of events and the contrasting accounts from medical personnel offer very distinct experiences of the same reality. He also describes his understanding of the way his mental illness was impacting his relationships with people he had once been close to. He writes 'The accumulated superstitions of our civilization in regard to insanity are very much still with us all and they can breed a devastating effect upon friendships...'

Interesting that Perry Baird's father-in-law suffered with bi-polar disorder, was confined to a mental hospital and became a family secret that wasn't discussed in the same way he did.

I'm happy Mimi Baird was able to research her father's experience, gathering records and collecting his personal writings but maybe even more importantly that she was able to meet and talk with people who remember him as "the best [doctor] in town", and said "We all thought he had this giant personality, he didn't hide the fact that he was a Texan, a bit of a wild man. He enjoyed his reputation - he could get a little crazy, but people loved him for it. Your father once rented a whole floor of the Copley Plaza for a party - that was the talk of the town." This book is a success in that Baird has been able to piece together a glimpse into the life of the man, who was for her, a lost connection and a family secret never discussed.

Thank you to the Amazon Vine program and Crown publishers for the advanced reader copy given in exchange for an honest review.

[Raven Haired Girl]

A mid-century doctor’s raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter’s attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.

Baird’s impeccable journal account of his descent into the depths along with his institutional stays are well detailed. His brilliant mind citing the cruel mistreatment by staff, barbaric treatments administered. His feelings of loneliness and isolation heartbreaking. As his disease appears and fades, his many losses are felt, his heart heavy.

“And so I put down the telephone receiver with a heavy feeling in regard to the consciousness of a great loss, just part of the price to pay for this type of illness. The mentally ill patient is often treated like a criminal. His imprisonment and his case have many parallels to the situation of a criminal. Also he pays a similar price when he returns to society. He finds many things changed. With patience and courage he can earn back what he has lost, if time and circumstance do not operate too forcefully against him.”

His relentless desire to learn more regarding mental illness propels him on the path of research where his suspicious are confirmed. Sadly darkness overshadows his research and his initial findings silenced, however, thankfully noted. His intellect utterly halting.

Stripped away of her father at a young age Mimi Baird, craves to fill the void of her father. Questions silenced, his disappearance vaguely acknowledged. Decades later Mimi discovers her father’s journal/manuscript broaching his illness, institutionalization as well as his research on mental illness. Finally Mimi pieces the puzzle of the man she remembers as she comprehends the full story of her father and his ongoing fight with manic depression. Mimi’s loss is heartbreaking proving the ravages of manic depression extend to family, especially family disguising mental illness.

A story of two people searching for answers. A painful account of mental illness, the stigma attached. A topic of compelling nature, Baird shares her father, hopefully demonstrating knowledge in the hopes of removing the stigma attached. Touching story.

Find this and other reviews at http://ravenhairedgirl.com

[Stacy Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Dr. Perry Baird, a doctor suffering from Manic Depression (aka Bipolar Disorder) and his quest to find a cure before the disease over takes his own life. I won this book from both Goodreads and Librarything and applied to win at both websites because I too live with Bipolar Disorder. I could really sympathize with Dr. Baird and his horrific struggles in mental hospitals. I took notes, highlighted and post-it noted this book to death. I could not believe the "remedies" these doctors tried to inflict on Dr.Baird! The restraint tactics alone, that the state hospital used, only increased the strain on his already compromised mental condition! I thought about listing some of them here to give you an idea of what he experienced, but it makes me sick to even think about it let alone write it down. It was barbaric!
The book is taken from Dr. Baird's own diaries on his experiences in the hospitals he resided in for months at a time making it all the more real. He was obviously an educated man, having graduated with top honors from Harvard and his writing is both eloquent and engaging. His daughter, the author of the book spends the last quarter of the book talking about her father's research on the subject of his illness and just how close he was to finding a cure or better yet being cured (or perhaps stabilized is a better word)if only he was born at a different time. Timing is everything, is it not. The book also explores Mimi's (the daughter) relationship, or lack there of, with her father and why she felt compelled to write her father's story.
I believe this book is for anyone who lives with Bipolar Disorder, know someone with the illness or works with people with the illness. The book is not as depressing as I may have made it seem. It is also a story of hope and how far we have come with the treatment of mental illness. I will be recommending my local library purchase this book upon publication.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Perry Baird’s daughter, Mimi Baird, has put together a fascinating and heart-wrenching book chronicling her father’s struggle with bipolar disease in the 40's. The book consists partly of her father’s own writings while in a mental institution and partly her efforts to learn more about her father’s life.

I commend this author’s achievement in bringing her father’s story to publication. He had wanted his story told but was never able to due to his illness. The fact that his daughter, so very many years after his death, was able to research and pull this story together is amazing.

Dr. Perry Baird had such a brilliant mind and if it weren’t for his illness, he could have achieved so much. Even while in the midst of battling with his manic depressive state, he was able to make a significant scientific discovery. His own story that he wrote while hospitalized is a powerful and moving one, telling of his despair at all the losses his illness was inflicting on him. The treatment he received in an effort to cure him was truly horrific.

The story of his daughter’s search for the truth about her father was also heart breaking. It wasn’t until she found her father’s notes when in her fifty’s that she began to piece the puzzle together. Up until then, her mother had done her best to hide her father’s illness from her and her sister. Her determination to find out what had happened to him and to regain some part of the father that she had lost as a child never failed.

A remarkable book and one that opens a window of knowledge into the world and life of a person with bipolar disorder.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

More Info

Author Bio

[Dena McMurdie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Perry Baird was a brilliant man with a promising career ahead of him. He was bright, charismatic, and full of energy. He had a beautiful wife and two little daughters that he loved dearly. He also suffered from manic depression. In the high manic phases, he had an abundance of energy and stamina. He was also violent, destructive, and unpredictable. The first part of He Wanted the Moon is Dr. Baird’s own account of his illness and the treatments of the day. It’s fascinating, horrifying, and spell-binding. I couldn’t put the book down once I picked it up. I finished the book the same day I started it.

The second half of the book is the account of Dr. Baird’s daughter, Mimi and her quest to uncover her father’s story. As she learns more about the man he was, she discovers more about herself and her childhood. Questions she’s held onto for decades are finally answered as she discovers the father she barely knew.

This is a riveting book. It’s not a difficult read, as both Mimi and her father prove to be excellent writers. Dr. Baird’s recordings are particularly interesting; often humorous, and often horrifying. I would highly recommend reading this book to anyone that enjoys nonfiction, history, biographies, or good books.

Content: A few comments of a sexual nature (no sex), and cruelty.

Source: I received a copy of this book through the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review.

My blog: Batch of Books

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this book, and, for a while, I didn't see much audience for it. A brilliant manic-depressive doctor's journal from the 50's. Hmm. The man's daughter received these writings years and years after her father's death. She had never really been told where he had gone when she was 6 (to the mental hospital). I am mildly interested in bipolar disorder and mental illness, but these pages were heartbreaking in their honesty or not (I guess you don't really know). What a sad story. We have come a long way since our barbaric treatments of the 50's (tightly wrap patient in icy bedsheets and leave him for several days?!) We still need to look as mental illness like we do a physical disease and not stigmatize victims and their families so much. Very interesting read.

[Kathleen Nightingale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a 4.75 but we aren't allowed to do fractions on Goodreads.

This book was the most disturing and profounding moving book I have read this year. Baird's account of how he endured straighjackets, cold packs, insulin induced comas, clectric shock therapy and humilition he soldiered on with his manic depression. It wasn't until Baird received a lobotomy and shock therapy that he was totally broken down and subsequently died. How unfortunate. Baird, as the author states was one of the first, if not the first to research manic depression as a bio-chemical imbalance.

A read for anyone wanting to discover why and how medical professionals practiced their craft in a totally different fashion than today.

[Pam Mooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful and tragic story pieced together by the doctor's daughter. Very much a primer for doctors, friends, and family members of those with mental illness. You are able to read the physician patient's manuscript along with the medical records from the hospital. Coupled with the daughter's account this gives a rare insight to the lack of understanding and unimaginable treatments of those with mental illness within this era. You may be able to conclude if only through his physician friends that perhaps this tragic end to a brilliant man contributed to the strides made in medical care since.

[Sorayya Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down once I started it. It is phenomenal for the way it chronicles madness-- a narrative based on her father's manuscript and interspersed with Mimi Baird's own recollections. Memoir is an attempt to make sense of the world, but doing so with a parent's narrative isn't common and I found the weaving in and out fascinating. I loved this sentence toward the end of the book: "I could carry our family secrets to the grave, as she had done--like her mother before her--or I could attempt to hold them up to the light and air." It makes me think that holding up a life to "light and air" is the crux of memoir.

[Kim H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having worked in several fields of service that included people with various forms of mental illness (nursing homes, 13 years as an ordained parish minister, now with a mental health office), I find the opportunity to delve into the inner workings and thoughts of those with any disorder an opportunity to better understand not only that person, but others as well. That's why I was eager to read Mimi Baird's account of her father's bi-polar disorder and how he was treated in the 1940s through the end of his short life in 1959.

Dr. Perry Baird was a highly acclaimed and very accomplished doctor who graduated with top honors from Harvard Medical School in 1928. He eventually married and had two daughters. Mimi, his eldest recalls her father lovingly and longingly as she had distinct memories of her father before he simply "went away" one day and virtually disappeared from her life. Because that's all her mother told her for years, she lived with the expectation that one day he might return. Later in life she learned the truth: her father suffered from manic-depressive psychosis as it was then called, and had spent months and years in and out of mental institutions during which time her mother had filed for divorce and remarried in an attempt to provide stability for herself and her two daughters.

After her father's death, Baird received a briefcase containing hand-written papers on which her father had recorded his experiences during manic episodes and time spent in (and escaping from) asylums. It had been his goal to write a book chronicling his experiences in hopes that it might assist in unraveling the mystery of his disease, help the medical and psychiatric professionals to devise better therapies, and aid those who love, live or work with people suffering mental illness to understand and empathize with the stricken.

He Wanted the Moon provides Dr. Baird's manuscript for readers. It is a fascinating read! To see his perspective on his manic episodes gives a perspective that is both slightly exhilarating and terrifying at once. What is fascinating is that, where available, the author has juxtaposed her father's writing with treatment records from the institution and his caregivers. What he perceived as super-human feats of strength or agility was reported as episodes of destruction or aggression by others. (For instance, he was thrilled to be able to bend steel bars with his super strength, even trying to bend them with his bare teeth. The hospital reports that he tore apart and destroyed several bed frames.)

The second part of the book is Mimi Baird's recollections of the journey to know her father through the paperwork she received and the people she was able to interview who knew her father. It seems a privilege to be allowed to walk beside her on that journey!

If you are interested in mental illness, a historical look at how the mentally ill were treated, or can connect with a woman's journey to discover who her father was and the impact he had on her life and the world, pick up a copy of He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him. You won't be disappointed!

From the Publisher . . .

A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.

Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized.

Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage.

Fifty years after being told her father would forever be “ill” and “away,” Mimi Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. In time her fingers became stained with the lead of the pencil he had used to write his manuscript, as she devoted herself to understanding who he was, why he disappeared, and what legacy she had inherited. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the reaches of the mind and the redeeming power of a determined heart.

About the Author . . .

Mimi Baird, a Bostonian, is a graduate of Colby Sawyer College. After working at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she later moved to Woodstock, Vermont, where she worked as an office manager at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. There she met a surgeon who had once known her father, a meeting that prompted her quest to finally understand her father’s life and legacy. Mimi has two children and four grandchildren. This is her first book.

Eve Claxton was born in London. She has been instrumental in creating six works of non-fiction as a co-writer or ghostwriter, and is the editor of The Book of Life, an anthology of memoir. She also works with StoryCorps, the National Oral History Project featured on NPR. Eve lives with her husband and three children in Brooklyn.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1944, when Mimi Baird was 6, her father, a renowned dermatologist disappeared from her life. Years later, she discovered he did not leave of his own free will but rather was institutionalized with what we now know as bi-polar disorder. Handed a jumbled manuscript her father was working on as he tried to find and understand the cause of his illness, Baird set out first to put his story in order and then use it as a guide to get to know the father she could remember but never knew.

Perry Baird's writings clearly showed his decent into madness as well as his ups and his downs. His writing was raw at times and definitely manic at others and printed a grim picture of the conditions he found himself and his fellow patients in at the various facilities he was in and out of over the years.

I finished this book awhile ago so the details are starting to fade. I applaud the author for taking this difficult journey - it's definitely something that took a lot of strength. It wasn't a bad book by any means, it just didn't really resonate with me so I didn't find it memorable.

[Lyric C.]

- unrated

Im not sure how I feel about this one. It was upsetting, raw, heartbreaking and beautiful all in one. I set out to read about bipolar disorder from the perspective of someone in the family but I got so much more than that. It pains me to see what the family went through and the state of mental health facilities. Nothing was held back and peeking into these journals felt so invasive I almost felt like I shouldn’t have been allowed to hear them, despite the authors wish to the contrary. Positively haunting work for me personally.

[Bri (semi-hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Subject was interesting and while I highly respect and admire author Mimi Baird’s mission to not only understand her father but present his unpublished manuscript from his time in the hospital, I struggled with the execution.

Dr Perry Baird played an important role in understanding biochemical markers in manic-depressive disorders and reading his own mental decline as he struggled with bipolar disorder, was in itself haunting.

I understand that Dr Baird’s writings would be a disjointed scatter of ramblings, but I still wish it was presented in a way that didn’t read so choppy or was maybe interwoven with Mimi Baird’s commentary alongside her father’s words.

[Nicole Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that this book exists, but hate the suffering that had to take place for its creation. It was a hard book to listen to, especially when told from the perspective of Dr. Baird in his manic states. Mimi Baird’s choice to use his words and not interpret them made me both love and hate the book. But, in the end, I realized thats how the story needed to be told. It is also a reminder that the state of mental health care in our country is still poor…and many (including health professionals) still choose to lock it away and ignore rather than face hard realities and improve outcomes.

[Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite genres is the mental health memoir - I have long been intrigued by examinations of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and the like.
He Wanted the Moon is incredibly heartbreaking. Imagine "manic depression" in the 1940s, in the time of asylums, shock treatments and lobotomies, before the medications and therapies that have gone a great distance to help some live better lives.
To imagine it is one thing - to follow even part of this brilliant man's travels through that time is brutal and unforgettable.

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is yet another book depicting the barbaric treatment of the mentally ill in the not so distant past.
I was reduced to tears, more than once, whilst reading this ... it is the stuff of nightmares.

[Nan Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the topic is tough and his story sad, I loved the story behind a daughter learning about her dad. I loved that her dad kept a detailed manuscript of his state and his treatment. And I mostly loved the detail in the way the story unfolded and how it all came together for a family, as sad as it was.

[Brigid Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1944, when Mimi Baird was 6 years old, her father disappeared from her life. Following the social mores of the time, her mother never rarely mentioned him. She divorced and remarried and Mimi Baird was left with a father-shaped hole in the fabric of her life. As an adult, she reconnected with her father's family and received from them a manuscript her father, Dr. Perry Baird, had written. She used this manuscript, this memoir, to reconstruct some of those missing years.

"He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and his Daughter's Quest to Know Him," is an interesting-- and harrowing-- book that makes ingenious use of fonts to delineate the bits hand-written by Dr. Bair, the text extracted from medical records, and Mimi Baird's own thoughts and experiences. Roughly the first half is her father's memoir, written during and after one of his institutionalizations. The text is clinical and scientific at times, relating the whos and hows and whys, the facts. At other times it wanders, becomes disoriented, random, and/or delusional (Baird clarifies several times that he has delusions but not hallucinations). The remainder of the book gives context to Dr. Baird's life, who he was and how long he suffered with his illness... and what he could have accomplished without it.

1944 was a dark time to be mentally ill, especially with "Manic Depression" (aka Bi-Polar I). Lithium was no longer used to treat mental illness (or gout, which it had been a go-to remedy for before realization that it was toxic in the doses needed to cure gout) and the available options included restraints, "cold packs," isolation, ECT (electro-convulsive therapy, aka shock-treatment), insulin comas, and lobotomy. Dr. Baird was a brilliant doctor and medical researcher but all that brilliance couldn't prevent his mental illness from affecting his life and relationships.

Dr. Baird clearly outlines the barbaric conditions mental institutions and staff put the mentally ill through. He documented the poor food (commenting that it might have been in part because of the war), the physical labor the residents performed, the beatings, the lack of privacy, the lack of adequate sleep (7 hours of sleep isn't enough for most humans, and lack of sleep can trigger and prolong manic episodes), the physical abuse, the ignorance of the physicians, etc. If you've read "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" (published in 1962, about 20 years later, and during a different war) the hospital, staff, and treatments are basically the same.

Mimi Baird later discovers that Dr. Baird was planning on writing a book about mental illness, specifically "Manic Depression", that would have been ground breaking. He planned to write about institutions and staff, ways they can be improved, to write about the facts and symptoms of the disease, to dispel myths and stereotypes surrounding mental illness, and include a guide for family and friends of the mentally ill in how to interact with them and support them. I really wish he'd have been able to write that book... and to continue his research into "Manic Depression," started before he became acutely ill.

I live with bi-polar II which is fairly different from bi-polar I (less manic episodes, for one) and recently started taking a mood stabilizer which is incredibly helpful for addressing my mixed states (and the irritability they cause) and once-rampant anxiety. I am very thankful to have access to doctors who know about mental illness, to have access to medication, to have friends and family who are educated about mental illness. Nowadays, the average schmoe with google knows more about mental illness than psychiatrists of the 1940s (the past is TERRIBLE). We've made incredible advances in the fields of mental health. It's heart breaking to read the horrible experiences of someone back then, and the impact it had on his family.

This is a well written if emotionally difficult book to read about a very specific time and place and experience of mentall illness. I'm glad I read it.

[Bianca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I requested this book from Blogging for Books to review because I was immediately fascinated by the subject. I've read a couple of other books dealing with the subject of manic depression disorder (now called bipolar disorder) such as An Unquiet Mind and Brain on Fire (both really great!).

He Wanted the Moon is a daughter's quest to know and understand the father she never really got to know as a child. Dr. Perry Baird was a brilliant Harvard educated dermatologist who suffered from manic depression. After experiencing his first manic episode and being diagnosed he became interested in studying this disorder. He was convinced there had to be a biochemical root to manic depression. Trying to identify this biochemical root he started conducting an experiment but never got to finish it because of his disorder getting out of control. He was institutionalized multiple times and got to write about his experience with the brutality of psychiatric treatments for manic depression. His intention was to write a book about it, but never got the chance to do so.
Mimi Baird, Dr. Baird's daughter started on a journey to get to know her father, his life and illness after receiving all of his notes and manuscripts. She was determined to study it all and put it together piece by piece, this way continuing the work of his father and getting the recognition she felt he deserved for his medical discoveries.

The book is divided in two main parts. The first part consists of Dr. Baird's notes and manuscripts put together with medical records and psychiatric evaluations to explain his physical and mental state before and while being institutionalized. This first part uncovers some horrific psychiatric treatments used to "treat" manic depression such as constant restraint, cold water packing, lobotomy. From Dr. Baird's notes, the reader can identify his manic state based on his hallucinations and paranoia that sometimes interferes with his normal thought process.

The second part consists of Mimi Baird's narrations. She begins by evoking her childhood and the limited perspective and information she had on her father's situation. When she grew older and came in contact with some of his father's manuscripts she started to research his live and get in contract with some of his father's friends. I really admired her willingness to go through this much work to get this book done. I really believe it wasn't easy. At one point she mentioned the fact that it was a therapeutic process for her, because she found a new identity, getting to know her father. She is determined not only to write this book but to get recognition for her father's scientific discoveries as well:
"I couldn't help but hold up my father's research alongside Dr. Cade's. Like Cade, my father believed that some biochemical abnormality or deficiency might be in part responsible for manic depression. While Cade's experiments led to one of the key scientific discoveries of our time, my father's research was forever halted by his illness. It is impossible to know how my father would have developed if he had been given more time, but I can't help but feel that he had come tantalizingly close."

It was an interesting read, I was intrigued by the story but horrified by the details of it; at the same time impressed by the determination to bring a great but tragic story to a beautiful end.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary and heartfelt family story of a father and family broken and severed by severe mental illness. Known in the 1930's-1940's as "manic depressive psychosis" a most feared, dreaded, frequently misunderstood mental condition, defined today as Bipolar Spectrum Disorder in the DSM. Authored by Mimi Baird with Eve Claxton, her brilliant highly regarded father Perry Baird M.D. was scientifically researching the disorder, his findings were published in a medical journal, when he fell ill from the condition and was hospitalized. Meticulously researched, Baird restores the memory of her forgotten father, and knowledge of his historical research, his life cut shockingly short by the devastating effects of serious mental illness.

In 1944, Dr. Baird was admitted to Westborough Hospital (founded in 1886) the largest state psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, with over 2,000 patients. This was not his first admission, nor would it be his last. The narration by Baird from his original manuscripts provide an articulate and often startling observations of his own decent into madness, psychiatric medical care and practice, being stripped of his dignity, the divorce from his wife and loss of daughters. There were many of his professional colleagues and his lawyer who attempted to assist, support, visit and care for him to the best of their ability. Considering the severity of his symptoms/disorder his license to practice medicine was revoked. Baird was so often out of control, notations of property destruction and violence were regularly recorded in his charts. Eventually he would escape to Texas, and remain in the care of family members, until his early death (in Michigan), from a seizure related to complications of his illness.

With the inhumanity, stigma, prevailing misinformation and negative cultural attitudes/bias towards treatment of the mentally ill of that era, it remains wise not to judge by today's standards. Baird's mother seemed cold hearted, abandoning her husband when he was at his worst, and avoided honest open discussion of the situation and his condition with their daughters, limiting their knowledge. Perhaps she felt guilt over leaving him alone, and quickly moving on with her life, these things are unknown. As a mature woman, Baird began her own journey, independently examining her father's life through papers and letters her father left behind, talking to his colleagues, friends and relatives, she gained genuine insight and understanding of the father she never knew, also of additional family history scarred by mental illness. There are many good photos included.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the true nature of mania. The book consists nearly entirely of (edited) journals and notes written by Dr. Perry Baird (the author's father), a well-known dermatologist who, around 1944, went into a deep manic episode from which he never fully recovered. After a few days of bouncing around Boston, arousing increasing concerns in his family, friends and associates, he was forcibly removed to a state asylum, where he received the usual treatments of that time : straightjackets, cold packs, isolation. Even while ramping up to, or coming down from, a manic episode, he was able to describe his own delusions, behavior and observations with clinical detachment. In essence, a doctor writing his own case study. For the next 15 years he bounced back from hospital to hospital in deteriorating mental condition. A literal escape from a mental asylum, the loss of his medical license, a divorce and the loss of his family, it is all spelled out in heartbreaking detail. At some point, the narrative is held together by excerpts from his medical records, the patient having become unable to string coherent sentences together.

So if the first theme of the book is just a reminder of how awful and terrifying manic-depressive disorder is, and how little could be done for it in the 1940s-1950s, then the second theme is that of silence. The author was a little girl when her father simply...disappeared... and was never spoken of again. Apart from one encounter as a young woman, she never saw her father again. Decades of trying to coax her mother into revealing more information yielded nothing. This type of stigma is hard to imagine nowadays.

The third theme is that of a life wasted. Dr. Baird published a soon-forgotten paper describing experiments that foreshadowed those (performed by another doctor) that would ultimately lead to the discovery of lithium as a mood-stabilizing drug. His daughter expresses frank pleasure in finding a book that references her father's paper.

The book is short, easy to read and does not require any specialized medical or psychiatric knowledge. It is an eloquent first-hand account of one of the most terrifying mental illnesses.

[Kristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advanced reader's copy from Read It Forward in return for an honest review.

I am having a hard time putting into words just how powerful He Wanted the Moon was for me. It was utterly fascinating and heart wrenchingly tragic. Mimi Baird, the author and Dr. Baird’s daughter, transcribed his story from the withered pieces of paper he had written on into this beautiful narrative. Then she added her own memories and journey through this process.

Dr. Baird suffered from manic depression in a time where the mentally ill were treated similar to criminals. They were locked up, treated poorly, forgotten. He writes of the barbaric and brutal treatments received. They strapped him to beds and stripped him of dignity. He speaks of his manic episodes, his delusions and thoughts, his actions and words. Mimi Baird inserts pieces of Dr. Baird’s medical records to give a fuller picture of his state of being. He was overactive, exuberant, destructive, and sometimes violent. All the while, the genius within the man could still be seen. He wasn’t blind to what he was doing; he was desperate to find a cure, or at least a more humane method of treatment.

Mimi Baird grew up without a father. After he was institutionalized when she was six, everyone acted as if he had suddenly stopped existing. Mental disorders were taboo in the 1940s and it was common practice to just cut off the relationships with the mentally ill. She never stopped wondering about her father and decades after he passed away she was fortunate enough to be presented with his transcripts. You can feel the hurt, the loss, the peace and finally the closure that she gets from discovering her father’s world.

The words on these pages impacted me. I am one of those who hate marks in her books, yet I found myself with a highlighter in hand, permanently scarring this book as it had done to me. He Wanted the Moon gives such great inside into the mind of a manically depressed individual and into the lives of the friends and families who are affected by this disease. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever had even the slightest interest in mental illnesses.