The book tracks McBride’s journey of self-discovery through a series of interviews with his brilliant, unconventional, renegade mother. McBride creates a narrative of vignettes that toggle between his mother’s life and his own childhood growing up in the Red Hook projects of Brooklyn. The storyline and subsequent personal revelations demonstrate a core principle of therapy — in order to know and understand one’s self, it is important to know and understand one’s parents.

The daughter of a sexually abusive Orthodox Rabbi, McBride’s mother Ruth (born Rachel) flees her family and marries an African American minister and raises thirteen children. She puts twelve of her children through college. Many seek higher education and achieve exceptional professional success.

Ruth’s family disowns her for marrying outside of her faith and her race and she converts to Christianity. She describes her religious transformation as a healing salvation. Ruth and her first husband have 7 children. Then McBride’s father dies while Ruth is pregnant with their 8th child, author James McBride. Ruth eventually remarries and has 5 more children. Ruth’s second husband also dies. Never one to complain or fuss, it is clear through the narrative that McBride must push quite hard to convince his mother to open up about her mysterious past.

McBride writes with simplicity and depth about the challenges of being poor and mixed race. In a memorable exchange he recalls an early memory of his mother crying in church and developing the impression that her tears reflect deep unspoken pain. He wonders if God prefers black people or white people and he asks his mother if God is black or white:

“Oh boy…God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit.”
“Does he like black or white people better?”
“He loves all people. He’s a spirit.”
“What’s a spirit?”
“A spirit’s a spirit.”
“What color is God’s spirit?”
“It doesn’t have a color,” she said.” God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.” I could buy that….

The struggle to live between two worlds is reflected in Ruth’s family cut off as well as McBride’s struggle to be mixed race. Re-reading the book, parallels with President Obama’s 1995 Memoir “Dreams From My Father” stand out. Published just a year apart, McBride’s memoir received much more attention at the time and has become required reading in classrooms and Universities across the country.

Ruth struggles with her Jewish roots and how they inform her approach to parenting despite her conversion. Similarly, McBride seems as torn between becoming a musician or a writer as he is about his mixed race. As a therapist, I am inclined to over-analyze everything. So it seems to me that his decision to dig deep and investigate his mother’s past helps him discover that he can do both and that each professional endeavor informs and enhances the other. There is a musical quality to the rhythm of his prose as the past and present dance with one another and create an illuminating and harmonious conversation.

AdaptationAdaptation tells two simultaneous stories. One is of Susan Orlean’s process of writing the book The Orchid Thief. Orlean is a quintessential New York intellectual immersed in an elitist bubble long before that term was in vogue. She is writing a story in The New Yorker about John Laroche, a toothless rebel who hunts rare orchids. Orlean mocks Laroche’s mannerisms while hosting sophisticated dinner parties while guests huddle alarmingly close together in her chic condo. But she finds herself obsessing over Laroche’s unrestrained passion and deliberate pursuit of floral perfection. In tandem, Kauffman tells a loosely autobiographical story of his personal struggle to adapt this magnificent book into a film. The screenwriter’s challenge is to capture a rapturous story about flowers and construct a film that reflects the simplicity of the book. Kauffman wants his screenplay adaptation to be about orchids — their life, their beauty, and what it means to cultivate a singular passion. This second plot is as colorful and arresting as the first, as the neurotic screenwriter struggles with severe writer’s block that mirrors Orlean’s struggles writing about Laroche. Meanwhile, pressure mounts from Hollywood to compromise Kauffman’s singular passion – artistic integrity – and make the film more gratuitous and marketable in order to give the viewers what they want.

The film’s title is also twofold. The plot traces the imaginative journey of the creative process of adapting a book into a film. The deeper meaning references the question of how humans and various life forms adjust and evolve in the face of environmental threats and challenges. The human capacity to change in the face of adversity and acquire new strengths and skills is central to this entertaining and memorable film.

John Laroche: You know why I like plants?
Susan Orlean: Nuh uh.
John Laroche: Because they’re so mutable. Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.
Susan Orlean: [pause] Yeah but it’s easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. They just move on to whatever’s next. With a person though, adapting almost shameful. It’s like running away.”

As each character on the simultaneous plot tracks learns to adapt and evolve, viewers may discover that this film withstands the test of time and takes on new resonance in the face of our current universal challenge.

Recently I suggested The Dutch HouseThe Dutch House by Ann Patchett because it is a gripping, well-written read with compelling characters and a plot that masterfully lures in the reader. One of the two main characters has type-one diabetes and this diagnosis adds meaningful texture to the story. The protagonist’s vulnerability seems more intense in the context of the current pandemic.

Another suggestion is The Great BelieversThe Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. This plot explores a group of mostly gay men in 1985 in Chicago, grappling with the devastating consequences of the AIDS virus. Reading about one pandemic during another may help grab a reader’s attention. The book explores the lasting legacy of the AIDS crisis on a macro level and as an inter-generational pattern and it offers some surprising lessons and relevant perspective.

If you are struggling with reading any new book, no matter how gripping its plot, consider re-reading a beloved book from your past. Check out this recent Washington Post articleWashington Post article suggesting that perhaps it is an ideal time to table intentions for reading new books and instead enjoy re-reading some of your old favorites.

Rebecca Makkai’s The Great BelieversThe Great Believers explores life in urban Chicago during the mid eighties as a tight knit group of mostly fabulous friends navigate dating, careers, family and the spike of AIDS in their gay community. A young gallery worker named Yale manages his complicated love life and attempts to procure a rare and newsworthy donation and installation. The plot intersperses Yale’s experience with the journey of a Fiona, middle aged woman in the present day, searching in Paris for her estranged daughter. Fiona and Yale were close friends back in the day, and both were devastated when Fiona’s brother, Nico, succumbed to AIDS.

It can feel therapeutic to create diversion from one pandemic by immersing one’s self in the tale of another. Makkai’s characters are believable, especially in their complexity and contradictions, struggling to navigate sex and relationships during a deadly stretch when so little was understood about the virus. Reading about Yale and his contemporaries’ risks and losses while sorting out what social distancing will look like in the weeks and months ahead, this book takes on a deeper meaning.

From a psychological perspective, Makkai understands the powerful pull of inter-generational patterns. Fiona insists on cutting off from her parents because they were not supportive of Nico’s sexuality. They are ashamed of his cause of death. Fiona persists in her refusal to let them in to her life, even as they all grieve Nico’s passing. Fiona frantically scours Paris in search of her daughter Claire. Like Fiona, Claire has become a mother herself and does not want contact with her own mother. Fiona eventually realizes the irony:

Your mother was supposed to be there when you had a baby, was supposed to yell at doctors for you and make sure you were resting. If Fiona had allowed her own mother in the hospital, would things have gone differently? Would her mother have insisted on putting baby Claire on her chest, make sure they bonded as they slept? The thought hit her hard, right in the abdomen, and so did the realization that what Claire had done to her was exactly shat she’d done to her own mother.

If you are looking for an engaging and relevant quarantine read, The Great Believers The Great Believers will be good company.

Listen to the song here in my heart
A melody I start but can’t complete

Oh, now I’m done believing you
You don’t know what I’m feeling
I’m more than what you made of me
I followed the voice you gave to me
But now I gotta find my own

I recently had a client share some insight into her anxiety in session that had me shook. It relates to this song in a special way. I started hearing the song in my head as we spoke…

The context was that in a previous session we had adapted a bell-curve I learned about in a training by the Renfrew Center. The bell curve depicts the course of anxiety as it rises and peaks and then goes back down. The theory is that if we are too afraid to face our anxiety at the top of that bell-curve we often find an escape behavior to cope. For example we may over-eat, yell at our partner, or otherwise hurt a relationship or hurt ourselves in an attempt to avoid sitting with a peak emotional experience.

In the session where I introduced the bell-curve, we came up with an exercise: 1, draw the bell-curve and at the peak, write the emotions you are afraid to feel or the experiences you are afraid to face. 2, closer to the peak of the bell-curve, write your escapes, the things you do to avoid facing these feelings and experiences. The exercise was illuminating for her, and the many clients I have used it with since.

So what does this exercise have to do with listening? And why did her insight shake me to the point of hearing music? Well, she realized that one of the peak experiences that she sometimes avoids is LISTENING. And of course the escapes are to not listen or to jump to conclusions.

It may be important to note that this client is not a bad listener. In fact, I would say she is a great listener. Her brilliant point, however, emphasized that even when we are pretty good at listening, sometimes deeply listening is a challenge. In the following weeks she challenged herself to listen to her partner carefully, past the things he said that triggered her anxiety, in order to really hear him. And when she really heard him, her anxiety met the other side of the bell-curve and went down.

We are all likely to face many triggers during the quarantine and both the session and this song help illuminate the psychological opportunities that flow from our work to notice the trigger without handing ourselves over to the anxiety.

My client’s insightful revelation had me listening to this song in a whole new way, but not completely far off from what seems to the theme of the song: setting yourself free from a force that is trying to control you. Not only can you sing this song to a controlling partner, you can sing this to your own anxiety, and set yourself free.

Reading for pleasure is a self-soothing and intellectually broadening activity that can help readers in quarantine move through this difficult and unsettling time. I think the trick is finding literature that is absorbing and well written. Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House is an ideal novel of the moment. The book is thoughtfully crafted and intelligent but also engaging and accessible.

The New York Times aptly describes The Dutch House as a modern day fairy tale. Danny and Maeve Conroy are siblings growing up in Elkins Park Pennsylvania who are deeply bonded through shared trauma. Their mother abandons of the family and then their father decides to marry a single mother of two who personifies every fairy tale’s classic villain. Andrea is central casting’s ideal version of a wicked stepmother. Exiled from their family home and denied access to their rightful inheritance, they have no one to turn to but each other.

Maeve’s diagnosis of type one diabetes frames the plot and hints that Patchett must have some personal knowledge of this devastating disease. There are subtle but meaningful passages throughout the book that capture the complex challenges of navigating this chronic life-threatening illness:

No one comes into the middle of geometry and tells you to get your things because you’re gong to be a starter at the next basketball game. When I went down the hall I had only one thought and it was for Maeve. I was so sick with fear it was all I could do to make myself walk. She had run out of insulin or the insulin wasn’t any good. Too much, not enough, either way it had killed her. Until the minute I never realized the extent to which I carried this fear with me everywhere, every minute of my life.

The book’s tertiary focus on type one diabetes is also timely and interesting because diabetics are considered high risk for developing coronavirus complications. Because Patchett chooses to have a character struggling to manage type one diabetes, I wish the book took steps to include how misunderstood the differences are between type one diabetes and type two diabetes. Anyone living with type one diabetes will tell you that this widespread confusion is a source of frustration and one never touched upon in the novel. Nevertheless, this engrossing book is well suited to become a friend to readers hoping to use their quarantine time to try to enjoy some worthwhile literature.

Lucy’s husband needs to work and take care of their kids, so he convinces Lucy’s mother (who has never taken a plane) to fly to Manhattan to keep Lucy company in the hospital. Linney was stunning as Lucy, and entertaining when she morphed into her mother in this memorable one-woman show. Linney is not playing two different characters. Instead, she is playing one character that, at times, becomes an animated imitation of the other.

During the show, I felt fortunate to see one of my favorite actresses become a literary character she seemed meant to play. I wondered how she could remember so many lines and what tricks she might be using to not loose her voice performing each evening, night after night. I also recall that the sounds of audience members coughing throughout the Samuel J. Freidman theater seemed much more noticeable. Was that because we were all thinking more about the mysterious virus exploding in China? Might a sound that was always present in shows of the past sound amplified as questions about the virus penetrated my consciousness? Or were audience members actually sick? I felt relieved to have a seat in the back row of the theater. I remember feeling pleased that the doctor had a revered presence in the play, though not quite as much of a beloved presence as in the book.

What I did not anticipate at the time was how incredibly fortunate Linney was to complete her Broadway run while so many other actors and staff were not so fortunate. Nor did I contemplate that the very idea on which the plot is based — being permitted to be in a hospital with an ailing loved one — could soon seem like a luxury. Nor could I have imagined that I would look back the beloved doctor’s presence in the play and feel even more awe and appreciation for who doctors are and what they do. In the play, Lucy’s doctor is a respected and revered illusive presence lurking devotedly in the background, pulling Lucy through her illness and keeping her alive. That’s who doctors are and the play acknowledges the significance of this role. With so much to grieve and fear during this uncertain time, I feel grateful that doctors and other medical and scientific professionals are being seen for the heroes they are and always have been.

Until theaters across the country went dark, the Tony award winning musical Next to Normal was enjoying rave reviews throughout its revival tour. The generous and electric performances of the six-person cast shine a light on the question of what “normal” looks like in the realm of mental health and grief. These questions feel even more relevant during the current coronavirus crisis.

But back to the play for a moment. Rachel Bay Jones won the Tony Award for her role as the angst filled mom Heidi in Dear Evan Hansen. In Next to Normal, Jones plays Heidi, the doting mother of two who seems full of life and spirit and energy until she doesn’t. The play opens with Heidi enjoying an exchange with her charismatic teenage son. But it soon becomes clear that Heidi’s energy is a deceptive and fleeting burst of mania. It also turns out that one of the two children she dotes on so lovingly has been dead for well over a decade. Her enthralling performance toys with the idea of what it really means to be or feel normal. Can doctors or mental health practitioners or even family members dictate what normal looks like in the face of loss? Can we place a yardstick up against the arch of grief and hold anyone to a clear-cut standard?

Next to Normal’s rhythmic and provocative study challenging these questions has stayed with me as I continue to work with therapy clients both virtually and in person. Each of us has a list of pressing concerns and a list of current losses. Deserted schools, virtual classrooms, canceled travel, worry for parents and grandparents, longing for life to return to “normal”. We are all wondering what “normal” will look like in our future.

The play emphasizes the power of human connection and the complex reality that humans process grief in unusual and unpredictable ways. Our collective communities will eventually acclimate and find a new “normal”. As we alter our social patterns and practice physical distancing, the ability to create intimacy through words, honesty and acts of kindness may be the best medicine.