If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Burn: A Bipolar Memoir

by Shane Feldman

198 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-2737; ISBN 1-4120-2188-X; US$19.50, C$22.00, EUR16.00, £11.50

This memoir isn't only the first book documenting the manic thought process and recovery in real-time, but it is also filled with a college-aged person's brilliant social commentary and satire.

Read more!

about the book      about the author      review      catalogue info

About the Book www.ShaneAFeldman.com The author, Shane Feldman, is a college-aged person suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar. In this memoir he allows the reader to observe actual thoughts and behaviors exhibited as a manic episode occurred in a real-time journal. He allows the reader to follow him on an intimate descent and recovery from a manic episode along with providing a prologue detailing his relatively normal life and high level of functionality in the absence of devastating psychological symptoms. After the episode, Shane added a series of insightful postdated footnotes strategically located to aid the reader in fully understanding the complexity of his mind frame. The memoir is far from being simply a documentation of a disease as Shane demonstrates his poetic and perceptive brilliance in a series of satires about the relationships between religion, society, and government. Though Mr. Feldman has suffered serious psychological illness for a small percent of his life... he is one-hundred percent a writer and has written and published a wide variety of works. Visit www.ShaneFeldman.com for comprehensive information about this author and his additional works, speaking dates and locations, and to directly interact with Shane and other people interested.

---

About the Author "Shane Feldman was born in Boston on February 3, 1980 and presently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His life has been a constant test to overcome adversity. At an early age psychologists evaluated him. The evaluations indicated that he was an extremely intelligent, perceptive and sensitive child with severe learning difficulties, anxiety and early signs of depression. Eventually Shane left public school to be in an environment that encouraged expressing his creative intelligence. He transferred in the seventh grade. He attended private school grades seven through eleven. In the fall of the eleventh grade, he had to be hospitalized at McLean, a psychiatric institution. After being hospitalized Shane continued his education and received his high school diploma from Beacon High School, a special needs school. Upon completion of his high school education, he was accepted at a prestigious university where he has completed several of his short stories. During the course of his writing career he has had the opportunity to work along side such writers as William G Tapply, Leigh Steinberg, and Jonathan Cole. Three of Shane's poems have been published in internationally distributed books. In August of 2001 following a substance induced manic episode Shane was diagnosed as bipolar. The following year he shared the details of a traumatic childhood. Another manic episode resulted in a more specific diagnosis of bipolar A Typical type, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). In 2002 Shane also received an award from a special needs school where he worked with young children with severe psychological and behavioral disorders." Sincerely, Helen Feldman (Shane's mom)

---

Review

A review from one of the prominent psychiatrists of this century:

"Mr. Shane Feldman has written a striking account of his mental operations during an episode of mania and his chronology of recovery with unusually perceptive account of his emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. This is in the genre of patient's accounts of their experiences in periods of psychosis. This work details the sensitivity and extraordinary perceptions while in this out-of-touch with reality episode. Mr. Feldman is bright, perceptive, and extremely sensitive to his emotions and has unusual insight into his mentation.

His chronicle will help many persons * those who suffer as well as their family members trying to understand the baffling events, the responses and behaviors.

The subject is timely and since the illness affects young persons mainly, Mr. Feldman's youth and experience in this modern urban life ought to resonate with other's experiences."

Very Sincerely,
Shervert H. Frazier, M.D.
Psychiatrist in Chief Emeritus
McLean Hospital

---

Catalogue Information

---