Continue Breathing

Throughout human history, mental illness has created fear. Nobody understood it and nobody knew what to do about it. Treatment of the mentally ill became more humane, but they were persistently shunned to the darkest of corners. People did not recover. And the mentally ill certainly did not speak for themselves.

With the pharmacological revolution in psychiatric medication that has been taking place since the middle of the Twentieth Century this is beginning to change. People stricken with serious mental illness are free and participating in society as never before. Rarely however, has their voice been heard, a voice that is honest, even humorous in the face of such debilitating symptoms. "Continue Breathing: A Novel" begins to fill that void. Yes, it is a fiction, but it presents a voice from someone on the other side of the prescribing desk, the hospital bed, the man quietly walking away from his doctor's office. It is a voice that deserves to be heard.

Josh Greenfield is a graduate of both Phillips Andover Academy and Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences. He holds two master's degrees from the City University of New York, one in history and one in English literature. He also completed the better part of a doctorate in English at Fordham University. He lives in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. To learn more, please visit: www.JoshGreenfield.net