The Square Table

Interview with Virginia Holman, author of Rescuing Patty Hearst

By Dina Di Maio

Rescuing Patty Hearst started out as an essay published in DoubleTake and earned you a Pushcart Prize. But some stories can't be told in 3,000 words or less. I assume you felt the essay wasn't enough. Ultimately, why did you feel the need to tell your story?

I had been trying to tell this story in bits and pieces over the years. But it wasn't until I passed the age of 32 (the age of my mother's onset) that I began seriously writing this book as nonfiction. It has been useful to me to tell this story on a personal level, but the biggest reward has been other people telling me their stories--because for many years our family was so isolated.

As you mentioned in an interview, a lot of first novels tend to be autobiographical. I like the fact that you are open about that. So many writers will try to say this isn't so--that a novel with a character of the same ethnic background, from the same place and with the same
occupation isn't them. Why do you think this is? Does it have to do with the fear of self-exposure that you mentioned when you decided to make your story nonfiction?

I tried writing this as fiction and it didn't work for me. I had a great need to tell the truth about the impact of my mother's illness and the clinical and legal barriers to her treatment. Nonfiction was the only way for me to do this.

Would you advise other first-time novelists to do the same
with autobiographical fiction?

I wouldn't advise them one way or the other. I think each story has an intrinsic shape and form. It's the writer's job to pay attention and attempt the form demanded by the particular story.

What was your process in writing the book? You mentioned asking your dad and sister for their memories and you also kept a
diary. How did you piece it together?

Very slowly. The childhood scenes are like a memory book. These are reflections and memories I have carried around (and no doubt shaped) over many years. I thought when I was writing the book that I was going to have a straightforward linear narrative, but then I began to realize how those childhood memories that I included had and were affecting my adult life, so I decided to bring those adult moments in as well.

Mental illness robs a person of their core, their being. If someone has a physical illness, like cancer, they still have their mind. They can still think and control their actions and experience joy in life. Mental illness cheats a person out of those things. You do say that there were times when your mother had "lucid" moments and that you had fun growing up with her. I think it's hard for a lot of people to understand this, and I think, often, they blame the individual as if they can "shut off" a mental illness. For people who don't understand mental illness, how would you describe schizophrenia?

Well, I think you've done a good job explaining it in your question. Schizophrenia is an atrocious brain disease that causes disordered thinking, hallucinations (visual and auditory) and causes people to have a flat affect. It's not a character flaw, it's not something that therapy can treat. It's a disease without a cure and some medications that can be somewhat helpful.

I've read interviews with you where you mention the law's ignorance of mental illness. What do you think could be done by lawmakers or the press to take the stigma that still exists away?

To keep talking about mental illness. I've had press people say to me--"Oh, we did a story on schizophrenia last year." That sort of attitude is heartbreaking when you consider that 60 million people worldwide suffer from this disease and that family suffering is so prevalent.

I think a book like yours is a step in the right direction.

I think so, too.

You just went on a book tour. Do you meet families of mentally ill people or mentally ill people themselves? How do they feel about your book and what do you say to them?

People have been wonderful. I have met with family members who are so grateful, psychiatrists and mental health workers, and people with schizophrenia. Frankly, I am overwhelmed by the support for this book and its message. I expected divisiveness, but I have been met with joy.

How do you feel about your mother now?

I love her.

There is an age where we all blame our parents for something. Did you go through that?

Yes.

Were you angry?

Of course, for many years I blamed her for her disease.

Have you reconciled or forgiven her?

I think I realized there was nothing to forgive her for. I just had to begin to let go and live my own life--that was REALLY hard.

Locally, what do you think of the proposed closing of Dorothea Dix Hospital--the impact on patients and the family and staff who care for these patients as well as society as a whole?

I think closing Dix is a terrible mistake--a travesty. We need mental hospitals and we need community care. But there isn't enough community care to help the most ill among us. Any legislator who thinks closing down a hospital without effective community care already in place is at best misguided and at worst an idiot. People will die without hospitals like Dix. Plain and simple. Unfortunately it will probably take a preventable tragedy and massive class-action lawsuit by family members to get people's attention and to change laws.