Book Selections and Health Resources: Mental Health

Book

In her early twenties in New York City, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Rachel Lindsay takes a job in advertising in order to secure healthcare coverage for her treatment. But work takes a strange turn when she suddenly finds herself on the other side of the curtain, developing ads for an antidepressant drug. Day after day, she sees her own suffering in the ads she helps to create, trapped in an endless cycle of treatment, insurance and medication. Overwhelmed by the stress of her professional life and the self-scrutiny it inspires, she begins to destabilize and finds herself hospitalized against her will. In the ward, stripped of the little control over her life she felt she had, she struggles in the midst of doctors, nurses, patients and endless rules to find a path out of the hospital and this cycle of treatment. This is the author's story of being treated for a mental illness as a commodity and the often unavoidable choice between sanity and happiness.

Rx: A Graphic Memoir | Rachel Lindsay | Grand Central Publishing | 2018 | 256 pages | ISBN: 978-1455598540

Author

Rachel Lindsay is a Burlington, Vermont-based cartoonist. She is the creator of the comic strip Rachel Lives Here Now (2013-present), which appears weekly in Seven Days. She is a graduate of Columbia University. This is her first book. Rachel gives book talks at libraries! To request a visit, contact her at RachelLivesHereNow.

Interview

Cartoonist Rachel Lindsay discusses Rx: A Graphic Memoir with Jane Lindholm on the Vermont Edition, September 4, 2018

Graphic Medicine

These Are Not Sad Stories: How graphic medicine humanizes the world of health care by Edith Zimmerman and illustration by Rachel Lindsay. The Cut: The Science of Us. December 20, 2018.

What do Graphic Medicine books have in common? "...their ability to punch the reader in the face with a stark image that instantly registers, and with sparing text that is, due to the economy of a page, more like poetry than prose. You can also read a graphic memoir/novel in a single sitting in a way you can’t with even the most masterful prose books. When you’re in the hole, you may not have the energy to process big blocks of words. A comic, though, can be far more digestible."
Rachel Lindsay’s Rx Proves Comics Are Perfect for Tackling Mental Illness by Abraham Riesman. The New York Magazine: Cartoon. September 4, 2018