What do you think?
Rate this book
Lithium Jesus: A Memoir of Mania
Charles Monroe-Kane is a natural raconteur, and boy, does he have stories to tell. Born into an eccentric Ohio clan of modern hunter-gatherers, he grew up hearing voices in his head. Over a dizzying two decades, he was many things—teenage faith healer, world traveler, smuggler, liberation theologian, ladder-maker, squatter, halibut hanger, grifter, environmental warrior, and circus manager—all the while wrestling with schizophrenia and self-medication.
From Baby Doc’s Haiti to the Czech Velvet Revolution, and from sex, drugs, and a stabbing to public humiliation by the leader of the free world, Monroe-Kane burns through his twenties and several bridges of youthful idealism before finally saying: enough.
In a memoir that blends engaging charm with unflinching frankness, Monroe-Kane gives his testimony of mental illness, drug abuse, faith, and love. By the end of Lithium Jesus there may be a voice in your head, too, saying “Do more, be more, live more. And fear less.”
From Baby Doc’s Haiti to the Czech Velvet Revolution, and from sex, drugs, and a stabbing to public humiliation by the leader of the free world, Monroe-Kane burns through his twenties and several bridges of youthful idealism before finally saying: enough.
In a memoir that blends engaging charm with unflinching frankness, Monroe-Kane gives his testimony of mental illness, drug abuse, faith, and love. By the end of Lithium Jesus there may be a voice in your head, too, saying “Do more, be more, live more. And fear less.”
152 pages, Hardcover
Published September 13, 2016
13 people are currently reading
246 people want to read
About the author
Charles Monroe-Kane
1 book4 followersI am a Peabody award-winning journalist with over 15 years of on-air radio and production experience. I am also a published author of numerous articles and a memoir (recently published by the University of Wisconsin Press).
I have been podcasting, editing, producing, and interviewing for the national show on public radio, To the Best of Our Knowledge, for 13 years.
I believe in journalism through interviews, reporter pieces, nature guides, garden gnomes, humor, storytelling, essays, poetry, and fiction.
I live in Madison, Wisconsin with my lovely wife and two young children and our cat Mr. Jix.
I have been podcasting, editing, producing, and interviewing for the national show on public radio, To the Best of Our Knowledge, for 13 years.
I believe in journalism through interviews, reporter pieces, nature guides, garden gnomes, humor, storytelling, essays, poetry, and fiction.
I live in Madison, Wisconsin with my lovely wife and two young children and our cat Mr. Jix.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
December 12, 2016
Charles Monroe-Kane is a Peabody Award winning producer at National Public Radio. Before earning that title he spent what seems like a life time acquiring the labels of youth preacher, faith healer, traveler, smuggler, environmental activist, record producer, circus manager, and more.
During his childhood Monroe-Kane began hearing voices in his head. Throughout his teenage years and twenties he used a variety of techniques to come to terms with and conquer these reoccurring messages. While spending time as a youth preacher he, of course, attributed the voices to God. While living in Europe and pursuing multiple gigs including but not limited to, record producer, activist, and circus planner, he self-medicated with illegal substances to combat the voices. Now, as a husband and father of two, Monroe-Kane uses less radical methods to remedy the voices.
Through his memoir, Monroe-Kane takes you through the wild and unprecedented journey that is his life and his experience with mental illness. Lithium Jesus is an eye-opening learning experience, as well as an eccentric journey through the world and the mind.
Jana S. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.
Read
November 8, 2016Wow. I had no idea that someone could overcome mental illness and survive many years of drugs and sex to live a life of productive normalcy, with a respected career, a happy marriage and two children. And I also cannot conceive of the courage it takes to write about all these experiences so frankly. Charles Monroe-Kane has written an unflinching memoir that I couldn't put down.
Please note that I do not use the star rating system, so this review should not be viewed as a zero.
Please note that I do not use the star rating system, so this review should not be viewed as a zero.
December 7, 2016
Charles Monroe Kane has had a more interesting life than anybody you are ever likely to know. As if being an award-winning producer for To The Best of Our Knowledge on public radio weren’t interesting enough, he’s also been a teenage faith healer in Haiti and the Philippines, edited an international environmental magazine based in Holland, was a professional anti-nuclear activist in Belgium for awhile, and even helped start Eastern Europe’s first Internet Café, in Prague. He also took a prodigious amount of hard drugs, had a frightening amount of unsafe sex, and has bipolar 1 disorder which features mania and hearing voices. He writes about all this and more in Lithium Jesus: A Memoir of Mania, an important and fascinating account of a life most of us can barely imagine. Highly recommended.
December 7, 2016
I just finished this book over the Thanksgiving holiday and found myself devouring it - especially the second half. I think I read about 100 pages in just a day! The author utilizes language really well so that you feel like you're going through these experiences with him. Lithium Jesus sheds a light on mental health that we don't talk about as a society and cover to cover, I found the story to be compelling and inspiring. Would definitely recommend.
September 14, 2016
I stayed up way too late reading- couldn't put it down as it was so interesting. A fun read. Was fascinated by Chuck's life story. A compelling and honest narrative that made me question how I edit and reveal my own self. Truly amazing how he learned about himself and found his path - and what a path it was. I highly recommend.
December 8, 2016
I don't usually like memoirs and auto-biographies but this book was different. Adventures with a twist of humor and true emotion, it read quickly and easily and gave great insight into his mind.
December 23, 2016
Topnotch stuff.
September 21, 2018
Lithium Jesus is a captivating memoir written with grit, humor and candor. The last third of the book is a bit choppy, but who cares? The prologue is concise and compelling, the storytelling courageous.
An unimaginable amount of life happens in a relatively brief period of time. Called to be a faith healer, Monroe-Kane walked a focused abstemious path. The voices, initially formidable, were a now gift from God. After losing his religion, he turned to drugs, not just for fun, but to quell fear of the voices, kick prescription medication to the curb, ride the highs of mania, harness energy for radical artistic and earth friendly deeds, and maintain his personal gestalt.
Although much of Monroe-Kane's story unfolds within the eyewall of a storm, somehow he drops into the storm's eye, and stars align, matters get sorted. Monroe-Kane has moments of peace and contemplation, meets and falls in love with his life partner, and is left with a lifetime of experiences that lead to a creatively satisfying professional career.
Monroe-Kane's partly neurobiological, partly self-induced, erratic ride could have ended tragically. Of course, a calamitous ending could befall any of us. Comparatively, those of us who are more calculating, sit back, make lists, plan, and wait for the perfect moment to act, are left to sit in the settled dust of inactivity. Those memoirs never get written.
"They got a name for the winners in the world. I want a name when I lose."
-Deacon Blues
Steely Dan, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen
An unimaginable amount of life happens in a relatively brief period of time. Called to be a faith healer, Monroe-Kane walked a focused abstemious path. The voices, initially formidable, were a now gift from God. After losing his religion, he turned to drugs, not just for fun, but to quell fear of the voices, kick prescription medication to the curb, ride the highs of mania, harness energy for radical artistic and earth friendly deeds, and maintain his personal gestalt.
Although much of Monroe-Kane's story unfolds within the eyewall of a storm, somehow he drops into the storm's eye, and stars align, matters get sorted. Monroe-Kane has moments of peace and contemplation, meets and falls in love with his life partner, and is left with a lifetime of experiences that lead to a creatively satisfying professional career.
Monroe-Kane's partly neurobiological, partly self-induced, erratic ride could have ended tragically. Of course, a calamitous ending could befall any of us. Comparatively, those of us who are more calculating, sit back, make lists, plan, and wait for the perfect moment to act, are left to sit in the settled dust of inactivity. Those memoirs never get written.
"They got a name for the winners in the world. I want a name when I lose."
-Deacon Blues
Steely Dan, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen
May 7, 2017
This is an amazing book. We should all look back on our lives and be able to regale the world with tales of fortitude, love, acts of courage, and lists of regrets. Mr. Monroe-Kane reminds us all that walking among us are people who have been in the trenches of life and lived to tell the tale. As a healthcare professional, it was a fascinating read as to the up's and down's of prescription medication, the advantages/disadvantages of self-medication, and the struggle to maintain dignity and control and an otherwise uncontrollable world. Read this book and absorb it. I look forward to more from this author who has the gift of gab in the literary sense. His vignettes weave a tale that is impossible to put down even though you have a rough idea of the endgame.
February 24, 2017
Charles Monroe Kane's "Lithium Jesus" is an unadulterated autobiographical journey into the highs and lows of mania, self righteous religious fervor, Radical (with a a capital R) environmental activism, virtue, sin, counter culture, passion, and love. It's a welcome message in the pill bottle, a time capsule into the post Cold War 90s, THE decade of decade blending and "cultural referentialism" all while ushering in the dawn of the internet. It will make you wince, laugh, feel warm and fuzzy inside, may give you an existential crisis and most certainly will provide fuel for conversation. Take the trip, go read it and give a copy to someone you love.
December 7, 2016
Read this in one sitting, not something I do too often. Loved the details of the authors upbringing, so interesting and told really honestly and with great humour. This memoir of a critical time in a young mans life was fascinating. So much bloody happens! It's a crazy time and the story is told so well. Its a great snapshot of the mid nineties in Europe too.
Really worth a read.
Really worth a read.
October 8, 2016
fascinating read by a producer on to the best of my knowledge. A tad graphic but gives a new take on what it is like to have a mental illness. The costs and the benefits.
March 26, 2017
This book digs beneath the surface of mental health into the mind of a young man who is suffering from auditory hallucinations and bipolar disorder. Tearing the cover off the clinical, the author speaks from the heart and attempts to capture the bedrock of his experience.
Lithium Jesus is a memoir by Charles Monroe-Kane describing his life from youth, when he first realizes that he is hearing voices, until he decides to leave Prague in his early thirties. A globe-hopping travelogue that takes the reader from rural Ohio, to Missouri, to the Philippines, to Hong Kong, to Haiti, to Indiana, to San Francisco, to a mental institution, to Alaska, to Costa Rica, to New York City, to Amsterdam, to Norway, to Ecotopia Bulgaria, to Peace Circus France, to Oregon, and finally to Bohemia.
The personal story lurches from one end of the spectrum to the other - from being taught to avoid being a sucker by his family, to becoming a full-time sucker proselytizing for the Evangelicals; from faith-healing, to the opposite extreme of Christianity with left-leaning Mennonites and the sanctuary movement, to atheism. From wearing suits and holding the Bible up like a sword to growing a beard, putting a ring in his ear and braiding his hair down his back declaring squatter’s rights in an abandoned building.
The voice is earnest, visceral, frank. The author is introspective, well-read, curious, smart, and above all aware.
A love-hate relationship with medication is central to the story. Does lithium suppress your genius? Is thorazine “a chemical lobotomy”? Off your meds, are you a danger to yourself and others? Does a patient have any choice in the matter?
The scenes are unforgettable. Pre-teen Guerillas for God whacking the tops off coconuts with machetes; waiting at the border with a huge solar generator while his leather pants get nicked; chasing a mischievous Swedish nymph through a forest naked; a rave in the foothills of the Tatra mountains with a MiG fighter jet as a DJ booth.
With disarming charm, Charles Monroe-Kane guides us through the epic arc of this tale, his testimony.
Lithium Jesus is a memoir by Charles Monroe-Kane describing his life from youth, when he first realizes that he is hearing voices, until he decides to leave Prague in his early thirties. A globe-hopping travelogue that takes the reader from rural Ohio, to Missouri, to the Philippines, to Hong Kong, to Haiti, to Indiana, to San Francisco, to a mental institution, to Alaska, to Costa Rica, to New York City, to Amsterdam, to Norway, to Ecotopia Bulgaria, to Peace Circus France, to Oregon, and finally to Bohemia.
The personal story lurches from one end of the spectrum to the other - from being taught to avoid being a sucker by his family, to becoming a full-time sucker proselytizing for the Evangelicals; from faith-healing, to the opposite extreme of Christianity with left-leaning Mennonites and the sanctuary movement, to atheism. From wearing suits and holding the Bible up like a sword to growing a beard, putting a ring in his ear and braiding his hair down his back declaring squatter’s rights in an abandoned building.
The voice is earnest, visceral, frank. The author is introspective, well-read, curious, smart, and above all aware.
A love-hate relationship with medication is central to the story. Does lithium suppress your genius? Is thorazine “a chemical lobotomy”? Off your meds, are you a danger to yourself and others? Does a patient have any choice in the matter?
The scenes are unforgettable. Pre-teen Guerillas for God whacking the tops off coconuts with machetes; waiting at the border with a huge solar generator while his leather pants get nicked; chasing a mischievous Swedish nymph through a forest naked; a rave in the foothills of the Tatra mountains with a MiG fighter jet as a DJ booth.
With disarming charm, Charles Monroe-Kane guides us through the epic arc of this tale, his testimony.
November 23, 2017
Surprised and disappointed by how awful this book was. You’d think mania, jesus, and subsequent rebelion would make for an interesting memoir, but it’s so dry, superficial and matter of fact that I don’t know the author nor do I care about him. The title is misleading as the mental illness (or rather, the author’s unwillingness to stick to his meds at times) takes a back seat to his rumpspringa-ish foray into life of a 20-something in the 90s. Ellis’ ‘Glamorama’, albeit fiction, has more character development and meaning than this. I guess perhaps it written the way someone with mania might tell a story of their life-stream of consciousness/constantly losing your train of thought. With other memoirs I usually come away with a ‘point’ or some self awareness from the author, but I didn’t exactly see how his mental illness was different from, say, anyone else I knew in the 90s who partied and went wild in some new found freedom. I mean, what did his parents think about him trading in jesus for raves? What did he FEEL? There was no feeling in this book. Mental illness and schizophrenia took a pretty far back seat to what I perceived as just a dude telling stories of pussy and pills. You don’t come away from the book saying ‘oh I truly know what it feels like now to be schizophrenic/bipolar I, and trying to find/lose god or to make meaning in a world where drugs, pussy and environmental advocacy exist.’—-or you kinda do I guess after the ‘afterword’ but it’s a little too late.
June 24, 2018
I was lead to this book by a piece from the podcast "To the Best of our Knowledge" out of NPR WI.
Let's just say this is a wild tale well told, the type of book I would never want to read about my own Dad but wow well-told.
If you wondered what it would be like to be in Prague in the early 1990s and be devoted to drugs and sex Chuck will give you a first-person viewpoint.
How he and his future wife got clean and sober would make quite a tale, so few can kick meth and have enough brain cells left to function normally again. I bet there is at least another book in that journey.
If you ever wondered what having bipolar I was like or what it is to look back on being off of psych meds this is quite a glimpse at that too.
It is a fast read, you will not want to put it down once you start reading. The sign of a well paced book. Certainly a talented writer
Let's just say this is a wild tale well told, the type of book I would never want to read about my own Dad but wow well-told.
If you wondered what it would be like to be in Prague in the early 1990s and be devoted to drugs and sex Chuck will give you a first-person viewpoint.
How he and his future wife got clean and sober would make quite a tale, so few can kick meth and have enough brain cells left to function normally again. I bet there is at least another book in that journey.
If you ever wondered what having bipolar I was like or what it is to look back on being off of psych meds this is quite a glimpse at that too.
It is a fast read, you will not want to put it down once you start reading. The sign of a well paced book. Certainly a talented writer
October 6, 2016
I really looked forward to getting my fangs into this book. I had heard versions of many of the stories contained herein, and it had never really occurred to me back in the day that these stories should have been recorded for posterity. Now of course it makes perfect sense. Having experienced some of these years working with Chuck, I can certainly say that being friends with him was like being friends with a hurricane. And I mean that in the best possible way. And I am very glad to have had the opportunity to throw myself back into the vortex, at least for a few hours of reading.
December 28, 2016
Mania is thy name
What a surprise! I was expecting a profound religious experience and got one. Tales of Chuck's journeys were fascinating, and as he says, exaggerated.
So what did I learn by spending my precious time reading this book? I learned that taking one's meds is a good thing. I learned using one's self as a human guinea pig has a price to be paid. I've been around such characters. It's an interesting, unique, exhilarating and strange ride, but well worth the scream.
What a surprise! I was expecting a profound religious experience and got one. Tales of Chuck's journeys were fascinating, and as he says, exaggerated.
So what did I learn by spending my precious time reading this book? I learned that taking one's meds is a good thing. I learned using one's self as a human guinea pig has a price to be paid. I've been around such characters. It's an interesting, unique, exhilarating and strange ride, but well worth the scream.
January 19, 2017
Was a tough read because I know the main characters. Many points were definitely more detailed than I was comfortable with because of that. Still, I would not have read it if I didn't know Chuck and Erika and if I had not I would have missed out on gaining some perspective to better understand some of the things my own family has gone through because of my mom's and sister's mental illness. Best line: "Because love only works when you are vulnerable, and you are vulnerable when you believe humanity is good."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2017
I enjoyed learning of Charles' life story, and man what a story. It was hard to get through bits of this books just because it's so all over the place. Though I thought this really showed just how a manic disorder can effect someone and their thought processes. And I didn't even know we live in the same town until I got to the very end of the book!
December 9, 2016
An engaging ride into the mind, time, and places of Charles Monroe-Kane. Visit religiosity, 90s Prague and Europe, and the realities of growing up and out of the rust belt.
*full disclosure, I know Monroe-Kane and his wife.
*full disclosure, I know Monroe-Kane and his wife.
March 1, 2017
First off let me start by saying this book is not for everyone. Those who get easily offended by some crazy shenanigans involving drugs and sexual exploits….. this book is not for you. Faint of heart beware. That being said…… enter at your own risk
January 5, 2017
Real review to come once I've gathered my thoughts on this.
February 15, 2017
A page turner that's fun to read!
February 23, 2017
A very interesting story. The book is very well written
May 17, 2017
Despite realizing halfway through this book that if I ever met this author, I would immediately hate him, I really enjoyed this book. Incredulous stories and life.
May 18, 2018
Really enjoyed listening to this audio book read by the author!
November 6, 2018
This book was a wild ride. This guy is an amazing author and his early life was absolutely nuts! I can't even imagine living like he did during his manic episodes. He's actually a very fortunate guy for meeting his wife and settling down before he killed himself. It would make a great movie! The book is humorous, sad, entertaining, depressing and likely a little exaggerated. Because how can he be so sure of the memories of his escapades when he was so manic? I don't doubt all his adventures took place, however. Thank God he found his way home. Because he's been able to contribute so much to the public through his career.
January 25, 2019
Not what I expected.
I thought this book was going to be about a man and his mental illness. I was wrong. It’s more a diary of years spent in Europe doing illicit drugs and sex. How does the mental illness play in? He mentions his medications a couple of times and a few times again when he chooses to stop taking them. Nothing ties together. This was a total waste of time.
I thought this book was going to be about a man and his mental illness. I was wrong. It’s more a diary of years spent in Europe doing illicit drugs and sex. How does the mental illness play in? He mentions his medications a couple of times and a few times again when he chooses to stop taking them. Nothing ties together. This was a total waste of time.
January 15, 2019
If your looking for an interesting life story complete with sex, drugs, & alcohol then this is the book for you.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews