THE RED BENCH: A DESCENT AND ASCENT INTO MADNESS

by Jacqueline Cioffa

THE RED BENCH, a fantastical, visceral roman à clef follows Cioffa’s descent into mental illness and bipolar disorder as she struggles to pick up the pieces of her fractured life after a nervous breakdown. Committed to writing for 365 days she finds solace, hope, and strength through a red bench, imagination, the changing seasons and healing power of nature.

208 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 31, 2019

About the author

Jacqueline Cioffa was an international model for 17 years and celebrity makeup artist. She is a dog lover, crystal collector, and Stone Crab enthusiast. Bestselling author of the riveting memoir, The Red Bench: A Descent and Ascent into Madness, and the soul-stirring saga, The Vast Landscape and Georgia Pine, Jacqueline’s work has also been widely featured in numerous literary magazines, and anthologies. She’s a storyteller, observer, essayist, poet, potty mouth, and film lover who’s traveled the world. Living with Manic Depression, she believes passionately in using her voice to advocate and inspire others.

Jacqueline has been featured in TV, radio, literary magazines and magazine articles as well as online forums, including Bridge Street TV, Spectrum News, Fox, Good Day Rochester, Soul-Full Sessions Podcast, The Mighty, BadRedhead Media, and Top 5, Jacqueline Cioffa / I Want To Be Her.

Her mental health memoir, The Red Bench debuted on Amazon in Bipolar Disorder at #1 and Hot New Releases, is a fantastical, visceral roman à clef follows International Model Cioffa’s descent into mental illness and bipolar disorder as she struggles to pick up the pieces of her fractured life after a nervous breakdown. Committed to writing for 365 days she finds solace, hope, and strength through a red bench, imagination, the changing seasons and healing power of nature.

Jacqueline Cioffa’s forthcoming book, The Shape of Us, Select Poems and Essays, celebrates all the complexities and authentic beauty of real, everyday women.

“Dedicated to all the women who have made me feel worthy of the sweet, soft miracle it is to be born a girl, in these fast and loud, masculine modern times.” - Jacqueline Cioffa

"Beauty lies in truth, hardcore, from the depths of the soul. Jacqueline Cioffa' takes us there, brave, raw & unfiltered." - Sandra Bernhard

Auburn author, former model, releases fourth book
"Self-discovery, self-love and pearls of wisdom only discovered after a life in the trenches of modeling, fame, aging and a nervous breakdown, Cioffa said." - The Citizen - auburnpub.com/lifestyles/auburn-autho...

Author Site: Jacqueline Cioffa at jacquelinecioffa.com
Jacqueline writes the column "Bleeding Ink," on Feminine Collective

Follow Jacqueline on social media
INSTAGRAM: @jacquelinecioffa 
TWITTER: @JackieCioffa
FACEBOOK: @authorjackiecioffa 

Reviews

[Nicole Lyons · Rating 5 out of 5]

To say I have been a fan over everything Jacqueline Cioffa has ever written would be an understatement. The woman has been gifted with the art of exquisite storytelling the likes of few others, and when she reached out to me to read an advance copy of her memoir, The Red Bench, I was beyond honoured.

I have sat in my own madness and I have never once claimed it to be beautiful. I have slit my own wrists and begged for sweet death and I have never once claimed it to be beautiful. Madness and torment, the sheared edges of a broken mind have never once been beautiful, but the way Jacqueline Cioffa writes about her descent and ascent into and back out of madness is nothing short of beautiful.

It is the mark of a true poet, a writer for the times, a soul breaking and beckoning love, to be able to take a little slice of the world’s darkest tragedies and write them as if they were light. I am not trying to downplay the struggle and the suffering that Jackie had lived, but I am attempting to put it into words that appeal to everyone who would never think to pick up a memoir about mental illness, because everyone should not only pick this memoir up and read it cover to cover, but they should also pass it along to every friend and family member they have.

I could throw stats at you and tell you that one in five people will have their world rocked by mental illness, but I would rather recommend The Red Bench and everything Jaqueline Cioffa has ever written because she has written it all unashamedly, unequivocally, and with beauty the likes our modern writers are lacking.

It has been a pleasure to read The Red Bench, and it has been a comfort to know that someone else in this world has felt what I have, has battled the same demons I have fought, and has walked out of hell while dusting themselves off and freeing their hands to pull the rest of us out.

Jaqueline Cioffa is my Red Bench and her story is the one too many of us have choked on because we could never swallow the truth. This is a book for all of us and Jacqueline is the treasure we all can celebrate.

[Sara Ohlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually read extremely fast, but I spent the month of May slowly reading this sensitive, difficult, beautiful memoir. Jacqueline Cioffa takes solace in nature to write with gritty, brutal vulnerability about her mental breakdown and finding a way to live with mental illness.

Like many warriors who have come before her, Jackie seeks solace in nature, in a red bench, in slowing down and being present through the sunshiny favorite days of September as much as the cruel bitter cold of January and perhaps the hardest days, the ones that tease like spring—will it be warm or will the harsh winds demand her attention—those witchy monsters in our minds that create the heavy burden of getting through each day, step by step, sometimes with painful despair, “I carry suicide in my back pocket, with tictacs, a wrench and a hammer” but in Jackie’s case, always with hope. “I am the walkabout, treading lightly and moving forward the only way I know how.”

This is no easy, happy memoir. Rather it is the raw truth of one woman’s path with mental illness. Jackie gives voice—with her heart exposed on the page—to one of the hardest truths about Mental illness, that there is no easy cure, no sling or bandage, no penicillin. It is an ongoing, difficult, confusing, often dramatic disease to journey through.

It takes a brilliant mind and a strong woman to live through this, let alone write about it for others to witness, but I believe the more we talk about the truths of mental illness, the more we create a support system for others struggling. I want to thank her, applaud her, wrap her up in hugs; I feel as though she is both seeker and guide. But I think Jackie just wants us to walk along side her, to be present with her, to do as she does, “write in spite of the fear.”

[Judith Staff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Red Bench is a powerfully told story about four seasons of surviving. Jacqueline Cioffa writes with such incredible eloquence about living with bi-polar and her relationships to her mother, those around her, including “the blue people”, and many other delightful and intense characters with various relatable traits that share her world at certain points. The bench is a dependable anchor in the ocean of swirling chaos that mental illness occupies. Jacqueline’s book is full of engaging imagery and accessible parallels, like the river of words which do not stop flowing from the first page to the last, not dissimilar to the deafening rush of thoughts some experience in their minds every waking minute. Her use of color as a language of its own - the red, the blue and the black – is so powerful, and communicates to the reader the endless spectrum of highs and lows.
Jacqueline’s relationships to Earth and her sea can serve as a subtle reminder of their humbling beauty and the power of being grounded, connecting with earth and nature. Jacqueline uses the seasons to keep a grasp on the passage of time and seeks comfort from animals who seem to have an innate sense of human emotion. The sumptuous glass house, an oasis of peace, makes cameo appearances now and then, gently reminder the reader of the sea’s soothing tide.
Describing with palpable authenticity a life peppered with not just bipolar, but also depression, anxiety and a range of in-between, Jacqueline Cioffa never forgets to keep encouraging her reader to fight and crawl out of the muddy ditches, the stormy nights and the dark woods they might find themselves in. She tells you it can be done, and you feel certain she is a living example of that. It seems incongruous to describe her lived story as “beautiful”, though her poetic words and the vibrant pulse of her writing are nothing but. I read the last few pages about four times as I finished the book, wanting the gentle words to linger in my mind long after I closed the cover. A fierce reminder to keep going, like the sun – just keep getting up again and keep going.

[Gina Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best, if not the best memoirs I have read about mental illness. I have long admired the author who is absolutely the best story teller of her trials and tribulations. Her pain, then triumph. She is a fierce advocate and I am honored to know her.
If you suffer from a mental illness, you should read this book and pass it on to everyone. Everyone should read this.
I hate that we can only give 5 stars. I would give 10.

[Kathleen Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very descriptive just not my type of writing style.

[Kitt O'Malley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful Window into Cioffa’s Mind

The Red Bench takes us along Jacqueline Cioffa’s journey of a year struggling with the vagaries of manic depression, or bipolar disorder. She uses poetic prose and metaphor to colorfully convey her experience. I highly recommend you read her novels: THE VAST LANDSCAPE and GEORGIA PINE. Love every word she writes!