“I do not believe in God. I believe in the power of Family. And occasionally, when I’m feeling optimistic, in free will. But blood is a force to be reckoned with. God, for example, can’t give you an excellent head of hair. Your family can. They can also give you cancer. And heart disease. Nothing kills like family.”



Thank God it skipped me. I spent a considerable amount of time in my young adult years worrying that I too would hear voices. My mother’s oldest brother was diagnosed with paranoid sc

“I do not believe in God. I believe in the power of Family. And occasionally, when I’m feeling optimistic, in free will. But blood is a force to be reckoned with. God, for example, can’t give you an excellent head of hair. Your family can. They can also give you cancer. And heart disease. Nothing kills like family.”



Thank God it skipped me. I spent a considerable amount of time in my young adult years worrying that I too would hear voices. My mother’s oldest brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia before I graduated high school. He died from health problems exacerbated by his mental instability before his thirtieth birthday. I’m not exactly sure when my great aunt began exhibiting signs of psychological instability, but word in the family was that she lost it after seeing a root lady, who helped her put a spell on an unfaithful boyfriend. She was in her early twenties. Jimmi was my mother’s favorite maternal aunt, her confidant, and biggest supporter, and our best and most reliable babysitter. It didn’t bother my mother or us that her home and food smelled and tasted of the kerosene she used for heat (she thought the utility company was out to get her). Or that she washed the threshold of her doors and her money with ammonia, in an attempt to ward off evil people and spirits. Nonetheless, she took good care of us; she hadn’t fully descended into total disorienting, psychotic madness yet. Her unchecked mental illness, however, would eventually render her incapable of leaving her home, at least not alive. She died while in self-imposed exile from a world she thought was out to get her. No husband. No children. When my younger sister was diagnosed with manic depression, I was relieved that it wasn’t schizophrenia. That is, until I read Juliann Garey’s Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See.



As the novel begins, Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive and the narrator his story, is coming out of the fog caused by undergoing electroconvulsive therapy for his severe manic depression. It is during this treatment, and his time reflecting while in the psychiatric hospital, that we find out how he ended up there. The most compelling aspect of this novel is that Juliann Garey does a remarkable job providing a nonlinear, frame narration that, in many ways, mirrors the mental illness her protagonist is suffering from. She focuses on 3 significant periods of his life: the disappointing childhood experiences caused by his father (who suffers from mental illness as well), his own failed attempt at marriage and his reckless travels around the world. These moments are hurled at us with what seems like no regard for the readers need for normal order, sense and balance - much like the lack of concern the chemical insufficiency has on our protagonist’s brain. His life comes flooding back to him in disjointed, rapid firing, fragmented memories. All nearly unbearable. All a manifestation of the heredity passed down to him.



The genetic variation responsible for causing Greyson Todd’s predisposition to mental illness seems both random and predestined. And the unfortunate delusion that he was capable of being a good father and husband seemed unavoidable, because he was not normal. He was the unlucky one of his siblings. It seemed pre-ordained by virtue of his DNA that he would repeat, in some way, the cycle of dysfunction and familial ruin his father initiated. After leaving his wife and 8 year old daughter because the effort to maintain a normal life was exhausting and impossible for him, and before heading out of town, he visits the cemetery and his mother's grave: “There is a plot next to her reserved for Pop. If it were up to me, I’d let my old man spend eternity in the cheap seats.” He despised his father’s affairs with other women, his inability to keep a job, weeks spent unable to leave his bedroom, failed plans, manic purchases that nearly leaves the family bankrupt, . “Some people shouldn’t be parents. I simply found out after the fact.” The sad irony is that the novel’s protagonist did know the damage a parent with mental illness can inflict on a family, a child; he lived through it. Unfortunately, he lacked the mental capacity to reverse the trajectory of his tormented life.



While this review mainly focuses on the aspect of the novel related to the devastating effects mental illness has on families, there is a bittersweet silver lining. Greyson Todd may get a second chance to nurture some important relationships, but it’s only because he is fortunate enough to have family who understands the nature of mental illness and who want to understand him. It may have been a blessing that he left his child before he was able to completely and irrevocably destroy all her childhood memories of him or any chance of a future relationship, as did his own father.



My aunt Jimmi had the support of my mother, who considered her paranoid behavior a usual occurrence among her mother’s sisters. By the time my sister was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, my mother was much better educated on what needed to be done to encourage her stability. She realized my sister’s psychological problems should be taken more seriously and sought out the proper treatment. Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See is probably one of the best public service announcements on the side of mental illness. Juliann Garey humanizes people with this condition; she takes us along for a ride that gets us about as close as possible to real, certifiable madness and the helplessness and isolation it causes. So, the next time you’re compelled to tell your crazy family member, a bum on the street, a friend to “get it together, and snap out of it.” Stop it, and get this novel. If you’re patient enough to get through it, you’ll be much better for it.