Mockingbird Years: A Life In and Out of Therapy

by Emily Fox Gordon

"During my years as a patient, I felt a guilty and unshakeable conviction that I was completely sane. Of course, my notion that patients were expected to be crazy was naïve, but I had swallowed whole the ideology that connects madness to beauty of spirit. In fact, I wasn't interested in being happier, but in growing more poignantly, meaningfully unhappy."Here in her own words is Emily Fox Gordon, therapy veteran, sometime mental patient, and prize-winning essayist. In lyric prose as memorable for its wicked humor as for its penetrating intelligence, she tells the story of her "therapeutic education," marked by no fewer than five therapists before she turned seventeen. At eighteen, after a half-hearted suicide attempt, Gordon began a three-year sojourn at the prestigious Austen Riggs sanitarium. It was at Riggs that Gordon was "rescued" by the maverick psychoanalyst Leslie Farber, who offered judgment instead of neutrality, friendship instead of silence, and moral instruction through dialogue. Beautifully crafted and startling in its observations of the therapeutic enterprise, Mockingbird Years is a stunning debut by a major new talent.

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

256 pages, Hardcover

Published April 5, 2000

About the author

Emily Fox Gordon has published two memoirs, a collection of personal essays, and a novel. She has received two Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a 2019 Sidney Award. She is a member of the MFA faculty at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina and lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, philosopher George Sher.

Reviews

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir describes the author's extensive time in therapy, including three years at Riggs, a posh mental hospital. She believes that she was never that unbalanced to begin with, and that her years of therapy actually delayed her maturity and reinforced her tendency to neediness and self-absorption. The way she describes her younger self, I can believe it. That was my main problem with this book. I really didn't like her. Sure, everyone is immature when they are young. And I give her credit for her honesty. But she came across as being so manipulative and self-centered, almost unable to care for herself at all.

By her own admission, she probably had a learning disability, and her parents were rather self-centered as well, but there was nothing really wrong with her: she wasn't depressed, addicted, abused, bipolar, eating disordered...just garden-variety unhappy. But she wanted to go to Riggs--she was actually happy when it was suggested--because she had a romantic idea of becoming a crazy, waif-like invalid. While I don't dispute that her years of therapy resulted in becoming ever more passive, tactless and incurious about the world, I can't get past the idea that she got exactly what she wanted. I never felt, either, that she understood how many people, even those who truly are mentally ill, have difficulty getting adequate care because few people have her affluent and privileged background.

On a more positive note, it was an interesting look at a certain segment of 1960s culture, and the book is well-written. Overall, though, despite her assertion that our entire society is now wallowing in therapy, those of us who have also suffered from garden-variety unhappiness and had to grow up, get a job and just deal with life (such as this reader) might become a bit impatient with the navel-gazing. I know I did. One message that really hit home with this memoir: therapy is boring!

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a disappointment. While Gordon chronicles her experiences from her teenage years through adulthood of therapy and inpatient psychiatric care, the work mostly centers on her specific interactions with two of her therapists. I spent the majority of the memoir trying to determine the author's diagnosis as she does not appear to have one yet spent years in and out of therapy. There are pages dissecting psychologic theory in a dry and uninspiring voice (and I have a degree in psychology and enjoy reading on this topic) which certainly did not do much to raise the interest. The book jacket identifies it as "beautifully crafted" but I would disagree - if this is the epitome of Gordon's talent, I fear for her future as an author. There are many other well written naratives of one's experiences with mental illness and its treatment; seek those out rather than waste your time suffering through this dribble.

[Melissa Duclos · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book about as much as one can enjoy reading about someone else's experiences in therapy. It was self-indulgent at times, though how could it not be. It did have some interesting insights, though.

[Patsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. I got about halfway through, but lost interest. Emily's writing is rather dry in my opinion. I didn't like the jumping around she did in her stories, but I did like some of them.

[Lynne Huffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

exquisite writing

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 The author started therapy at 11 years old in the 60s. A time in therapy that makes it clear why my parents' generation was so resistant to the idea that therapy could be helpful. It seems at that time, it really wasn't.

But Gordon continues to try therapy on and off up to the point the book is written, and although she seems to deem herself more knowledgeable and intelligent than her therapists (despite admitting to her own lack of education throughout the book), she keeps at it. I wonder how differently it may have gone if she'd had female therapists (not in great supply at the time for all the obvious patriarchal reasons), and hadn't had an obsession with "pleasing" her therapists, especially Farbar.

[Stephanie]

This one sounded really interesting to me but it definitely fell short. I got 34 pages in and gave up. It felt rambling without a clear story and the writing style did not work for me. There were too many sentences that felt like someone had used a thesaurus to pick out bigger words.

In only the section I read, be aware there are content warnings for self-harm and abortion.

[ForestGardenGal · Rating 2 out of 5]

The self-indulgent ramblings of a upper middle class attention seeker. There was nothing really interesting in this book other than watching a fairly intelligent girl learn how to manipulate therapists, not all of whom were competent or even ethical. Not my cuppa tea.

[Rachel Flora]

Did not finish. Read another book by her and don’t like the writing style.

[Caty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, some people are crazy, or, that is, they suffer from emotional extremes--this girl is just apolitical & self-indulgent. She was so selfish she wasted the 60s--&that vaunted, worshipped academic of a shrink of hers didn't help matters w/his paternalism. Still, it was interesting & well written enough.

[Holly Foley (Procida) · Rating 2 out of 5]

If one wanted to read something by Emily Fox Gordon I much more highly recommend "Book of Days." You can get essentially the same story as this memoir but in a better format of writing for her. While I do think Emily Fox Gordon is gifted writer the subject of her own life wasn't very interesting to me.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emily had quite a childhood journey. Though this book chronicles her therapists, it's a strange trip through the 60's, leaving home, marriage, a child, drugs. She was able to conquer so many of her demons, and gain a writing career. A great read.

[Carrie | Boston Book Fanatic]

8/01

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't put this book down. I saw this book while looking for memoirs on a book site and bought it because I have been in and out of therphy myself for nineteen years.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to literally throw it across the room, it made me so mad.

[Julene · Rating 2 out of 5]

I forced myself through this book; there were glimmering moments of enjoyment, but I found it to be an unsatisfying read on the whole. I wish that were not the case.

[Jolie G.]

Oct 25, 2010

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the book would be more of a discussion about therapy.....it was more of a memoir about the author which I really wasn't interested in.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting take on the similation and trust that takes place when a patient connects with the therapist.

[Kayleigh P · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read 2019. Quite literally the most boring and tedious mental health memoir I’ve ever read.

[Stealth Journals]

Got it out of the library, but DNR.