The Hospital Always Wins: A Memoir

Description

Issa Ibrahim's memoir details in searing prose his development of severe mental illness leading to a horrific family tragedy, his acquittal by reason of insanity, and his subsequent commission to a mental hospital for nearly twenty years. Raised in an idyllic creative environment, mom and dad cultivating his talent, Issa watches his family's descent into chaos in the drug-crazed late 1980s. Following his father's death, Issa, grief-stricken and vulnerable, travels down a road that leads to psychosisand to one of the most nightmarish scenarios conceivable. Issa receives the insanity plea and is committed to an insane asylum with no release date. But that is only the beginning of his odyssey. Institutional and sexual sins cause further punishments, culminating in a heated legal battle for freedom. Written with great verve and immediacy, The Hospital Always Wins paints a detailed picture of a broken mental health system but also reveals the power of art, when nurtured in a benign environment, to provide a resource for recovery. Ultimately this is a story about survival and atonement through creativity and courage against almost insurmountable odds.

Issa Ibrahim is an artist, writer, and musician. He has been featured in an HBO documentary, an award-winning NPR audio story, and in exhibitions the world over. He has created numerous CD covers and merchandise designs, and his award-winning musical documentary film, Patient's Rites, is showing in film festivals and has been embraced by the mental health community.

"A beautifully written masterpiece of shocking truths, powerful drama, and gripping storytelling. It pulled me down the rabbit hole and spit me out under a deadly cold light, deftly transformed to an unexpected warmth by the remarkable compassion of the author. I couldn't put it down until the truly shocking finish." --Xavier Amador, author of I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help! "Artist Ibrahim's desperate memoir feels as though it was carved from his heart." --Booklist "I picked up The Hospital Always Wins and couldn't put it down. Issa Ibrahim writes with remarkable clarity and an artist's skill for evoking place and time and the inner landscape of his own mind." --Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic "Insightful, troubling, touching, poetic, and at times humorous, this book will please readers of offbeat biographies." --Library Journal "Searing" and "poignant." --O, the Oprah Magazine