Don't let the title scare you." My Brother's Madness" by Paul Pines is a page turner. The story ricochets gracefully from past to present. This gives the insight into the pressures of growing up in an unstable environment. These jumps forward and backward are clear and easy to follow and add a level of suspense. This memoir is not your typical psychological thriller. It's a factual one! Told with a an elegant simplicity and a sustaining sense of humor, "My Brother's Madness" is a pleasure -- disturbing, yes, but a pleasure. Upon reaching the end, one feels the most astounding thing is not that one brother cracked up, but that the other somehow made it through. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

"My Brother's Madness"
Paul Pines' "My Brother's Madness" is a remarkable portrayal of both the causes and effects of his brother Claude's schizophrenia and of his own never-ending efforts to help him survive it, if not conquer it.
Pines paints a vast panorama of two lives, of their genetic, familial, societal and personal elements, told in the fascinating day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year details of a sometimes rewarding, often frustrating and frequently exasperating ---but always loving---brotherhood. There are many times you want to laugh, yet you know that soon you will have to cry.
Reading the memoir, I was transported into the brothers' family, into the minds and hearts of their parents and of the brothers themselves. I thought their every thought, lived their every experience, felt their every emotion. And, like the author, as much as I learned, I came to know that there is much I will never know.
Which makes me appreciate his efforts even more.
"My Brother's Madness" is a monumental work.

Howard Rayfiel