A powerful, raw and unflinchingly honest account of a life come undone.
To everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream, named one of Folio's Top Women in US Media and accruing further awards for the magazines she was editing. In reality, she was rapidly skidding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a locked psychiatric ward as her past caught up with her.
As well as growing up in a household in poverty, Terri endured sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a number of her mother's partners. Her success defied all expectations, but the greater the disparity between her outer achievements and inner demons, the more she struggled to hold everything together.
Coming Undone is Terri's documentation of her unravelling, and her precarious navigation back from a life in pieces.
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In my right hand is a transparent bag holding my clothes, basic toiletries and loose items of make-up. CHAPTER 1
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(@canongatebooks, 2 July 2020, 254 pages, ebook, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs)
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This has been on my radar a while as I've heard so many good things about it. I was delighted when it became available. I've read a decent number of memoirs and creative non-fiction which focus on depressed, mental illness and the like. Coming Undone is among the best I've read. I was right in Terri's head and on her side from the sparse, painful opening chapter and rooted for her all the way to the end. This is a book about struggling to keep it together when your mental health and life are falling apart, life becoming too much too handle and how life can kick the shit out of you when you least expect it. Terri's journey back to herself and sanity isn't easy but it's well worth a read.
