Michael Greenberg

A volume of autobiographical tales by the bi-weekly columnist for the Times Literary Supplement is set in New York and includes profiles of his family members and neighbors as well descriptions of his tragicomic struggles to support himself as a writer. By the Time Best Book author of Hurry Down Sunshine.

A Writer's Life

Beg, Borrow, Steal

Hurry down sunshine

HURRY DOWN SUNSHINE TELLS THE STORY OF THE extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Michael Greenberg’s daughter was struck mad. It begins with Sally’s visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city’s most sweltering months. “I feel like I’m traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to,” Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine. Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her–her brother and grandmother, her mother and stepmother, and, not least of all, the author himself. Among Greenberg’s unforgettable gallery of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary dreams. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine holds the reader in a mesmerizing state of suspension between the mundane and the transcendent. “The psychotic break of his fifteen-year-old daughter is the grit around which Michael Greenberg forms the pearl that is Hurry Down Sunshine. It is a brilliant, taut, entirely original study of a suffering child and a family and marriage under siege. I know of no other book about madness whose claim to scientific knowledge is so modest and whose artistic achievement is so great.” – Janet Malcolm, author of The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes and The Journalist and the Murderer “One of the most gripping and disturbingly honest books I have ever read. The courage Michael Greenberg shows in narrating the story of his adolescent daughter’s descent into psychosis is matched by his acute understanding of how alone each of us, sane or manic, is in our processing of reality and our attempts to get others to appreciate what seems important to us. This is a remarkable memoir.” – Phillip Lopate, author of Two Marriages and Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan

A Father's Memoir of Love and Madness

Hurry Down Sunshine

Geri Dön Günisigim

eine wahre Geschichte

Der Tag, an dem meine Tochter verrückt wurde

Ésta es la historia del verano en que Sally, la hija de quince años de Michael Greenberg, sufrió una crisis nerviosa y perdió la razón. A partir de ese momento, padre e hija entraron en un mundo paralelo que transformaría sus vidas para siempre. «Me siento como si estuviera viajando sin parar, sin ningún sitio al que volver», dice Sally en un ataque de lucidez. Hacia el amanecer es la crónica de este viaje relatada por un padre que descubre la fragilidad humana, pero también la capacidad de lucha, el valor del optimismo y la fuerza del amor. Un libro inclasificable, siempre conmovedor, en el que Michael Greenberg muestra qué sucede cuando alguien tan cercano se vuelve impenetrable. «Este sobrio, honesto e intenso viaje a la locura nos hace rozar el sentido del mundo. O su sinsentido. Es un libro deslumbrante que nos vuelve más sabios», Rosa Montero. «Greenberg hace buena literatura con la locura, despojándola de la mitificación que de ella suele hacer la literatura. Es el duro trayecto de un padre que acaba aceptando que la genialidad artística de su hija es en realidad una enfermedad mental», Isaac Rosa. «Un reportaje extraordinario sobre la extrañeza», Juan José Millás. «Una novela a la que uno se entrega incondicionalmente desde el principio... Una de esas novelas que queman, y cuya materia literaria se confunde con la de la vida», Luis Landero. «Conmovedor... Acabas el libro con la convicción de que, como en la mejor ficción, este testimonio trasciende lo particular y lo excéntrico para convertirse en arte logrado a muy alto precio», Joyce Carol Oates.

Hacia el amanecer

A guide to help develop a large vocabulary provides information on the meanings of a variety of words, word origins, and usage, and contains exercises and sample essays that highlight different words.

Painless Vocabulary

Brooke Greenberg

Record One Year of Blood Pressure Readings, Medications, and Medical Appointments

Blood Pressure Log

One summer evening Michael Greenberg's daughter Sally was brought home by the police after rushing into a busy road in Greenwich Village, convinced she could halt the oncoming traffic. The mania had come over her abruptly: her habit of poring obsessively over poems late into the night or listening to music on her battered walkman for hours could be considered 'normal' teenage behaviour, and yet it was a clue to the internal tumult that was about to overwhelm her. Now her behaviour had moved from the realm of the adolescent and eccentric to the acutely unstable, and she needed professional help. And so just a few days later Michael found himself in the surreal world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's most sweltering months. Confused, anxious, looking for answers, he asked himself whether he was to blame. Perhaps this illness had been Sally's genetic inheritance. Perhaps, as a writer, he hadn't been able to provide the secure and stable home she needed. Sally's mother had left some time ago, finding life in the city suffocating, and his new wife, Pat, had not found it easy building a relationship with his clever, headstrong daughter. But looking around him at the other concerned families in the waiting room, he began to realise that the answers to his questions were not so simple. Touching, memorable and unsentimental, Hurry Down Sunshine is partly an insightful exploration of what mental illness has come to mean in our culture, and partly a moving memoir about how one family learns to cope with the prejudice and uncertainty that faces those affected by it.

A father's memoir of love and madness

Appropriate for one- or two-semester Advanced Engineering Mathematics courses in departments of Mathematics and Engineering. This clear, pedagogically rich book develops a strong understanding of the mathematical principles and practices that today's engineers and scientists need to know. Equally effective as either a textbook or reference manual, it approaches mathematical concepts from a practical-use perspective making physical applications more vivid and substantial. Its comprehensive instructional framework supports a conversational, down-to-earth narrative style offering easy accessibility and frequent opportunities for application and reinforcement.

Pearson New International Edition

Advanced Engineering Mathematics

Spisovateli na volné noze, který jen horko těžko shání zakázky, jednoho dne zčistajasna „zešílí“ dospívající dcera. Začne chytat na ulici neznámé lidi a vykřikuje cosi o vrozené genialitě každého z nás, hluboko do noci horlivě studuje různé texty a zápisník má plný naškrábaných poznámek. Přiznat si, že chování Sally pravděpodobně není známkou její výjimečnosti, nýbrž jde o nemoc, která je pro ni samotnou nebezpečná, není jednoduché.Nakonec nezbývá nic jiného, než ji odvézt na psychiatrii, kde ji pomocí léků „stáhnou“ z oblak na zem. Následně se roztáčející kolotoč hledání příčin jejího současného stavu pokládá otázky: Je důvod manické psychózy dcery vrozený? Může za to on sám? Stojí za tím dědictví rodu, vždyť i jeho bratr je psychicky nemocný? Přispěly k tomu vnější podmínky, jako je nevyhovující bydlení, rozvod s první ženou, neuspořádaný vlastní život? Či samo agresivní město, se svou přemírou podnětů a rozptýlení? Nebo snad za tím jsou drogy a její stav je pouze dočasný? Či snad nakonec jde opravdu o boží hlas?

Michael Greenberg

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