Scattershot : My Bipolar Family

An memoir of mental illness in the tradition of the bestselling An Unquiet Mind Scattershotis David Lovelace’s poignant, humorous, and vivid account of bipolar disorder’s effects on his family, and his gripping exploits as he spent his life running from— and finally learning to embrace—the madness imprinted on his genes. Four out of five people in David Lovelace’s immediate family have experienced bipolar disorder— including David himself. In 1986, his father, his brother, and David himself were all committed in quick succession. Only his sister has escaped the disease. A coming-of-age story punctuated by truly harrowing experiences, this devastating and empathetic portrait of the Lovelace family strips away the shame associated with bipolar disorder—a disease that affects approximately 5.7 million adult Americans—and celebrates the profound creative gifts that come with it.

David Lovelace is a writer, carpenter, and former owner of the Montague Bookmill, a bookstore near Amherst, Massachusetts. His poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was shortlisted for the Patterson Literary Review's Allen Ginsberg Award.