The Eden Express

"Most diseases can be separated from one's self ... schizophrenia is something we are." So begins Mark Vonnegut's depiction of his descent into, and eventual emergence from, mental illness. As a recent college graduate, self-avowed hippie, and son of a counterculture hero, Vonnegut begins to experience increasingly delusional thinking, suicidal thoughts, and physical incapacity. In February 1971 he is committed to a psychiatric hospital. The Eden Express, an ALA Notable Book first published over 25 years ago, is his honest, thoughtful, and moving account of the illness of schizophrenia.