The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays

What does it mean to be “insane?” This book not only looks at how we define and determine what it is to be schizophrenic but also the horrors the opaque nature of diagnoses. However horrible the experience is to be mentally ill, to have the science behind it be so vague forces many to live without real determination of what is actually wrong. Wang shows without fantastical language just how horrible mental illness can be.

The book is a collection of essays and by its nature lacks a cohesive through-line. In fact, even within each essay, I found the writing haphazard. In some ways I wanted the book to provide the reader a way to see behind the mask of schizophrenia and better understand the experience, but what we see instead is that each experience is unique to the individual. Wang makes up for this, though, with both research and personal anecdote.