Quitting the Nairobi Trio

A mad book by a level head. Jim Knipfel gives you a ground zero tour of a locked down psych ward where he spent 6 months (in his early 20's) after trying to off himself with pills and cheap scotch (not that a $20 bottle would've necessarily done the job). He would be the first to admit that he is inept at suicide, this being one (the slam dunk) in a long line of self-inflicted attempts on his life. Writing from the perspective of an older person, one who may not have exorcised all his demons but at least has figured out what to feed them so that he can focus on his writing, Knipfel has drawn an evocative sketch of a milieu most people only see dramatized in films.
There is a cast of "Cuckoo's Nest" characters, each with their own quirks, but Knipfel shoots for empathy, or at least understanding, rather than condescension in his writing. It's the doctors and one particular orderly that make him leery; this orderly makes it a point to give him a guided tour of the electroshock therapy room and the straitjacket closet because he thinks of Knipfel as someone on the "outside". In fact, when he is eventually moved upstairs to the "open" ward (a case of false advertising, it turns out), he begins to miss his former community: the man on the stationary bike who pauses only to yell a bunch of four letter non sequitors and the woman whose makeup is applied in such a way that every day is Halloween for her. It is these descriptions, along with Knipfel's own psychedelic hallucinations that keep you engrossed. Despite having studied philosophy in grad school, thankfully he spins his tales with a layman's vocabulary.

In two books, this one and the earlier "Slackjaw", another painful/funny memoir, Knipfel, if he doesn't quite make the case for suffering as a crucible on the path towards a more tranquil frame of mind, at least allows you to laugh about it in a way that doesn't make you feel bad about doing so.