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Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment Available on Amazon! |
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Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment (Paperback)
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Christmas Eve, 1968: history is
made as Apollo 8 astronauts deliver their Christmas message from orbit around
the moon.
On earth, at The
Crystal Ship, a rock and head shop near Hollywood, California, Jennifer Semple
listens to the iconic broadcast and, through the fog of drugs, ponders the
future.
In the ensuing
days, the 18-year-old girl experiments with LSD and other drugs; juggles a
crumbling relationship with a notorious drug dealer; and tries to make sense of
life at 2001 Ivar Street, a Hollywood, California, apartment complex where
hippies, drug dealers, freaks, strippers, groupies, college students, Jesus
Freaks, counterculture gurus, drag queens, rock stars and wannabe rocksters,
svengalis, and con artists converge during one of the most volatile periods in
history.
Then her
grandfather finds the girl and coaxes her into returning to her Iowa hometown,
where, unknown to her, she is still considered a minor.
After a series of
events and blowups with her grandparents, she is dragged into the Iowa court
system and involuntarily committed to the Cherokee Mental Institute in
Cherokee, Iowa.
While
incarcerated, she corresponds with Jeff, a new boyfriend, and also interacts
with other patients: Wolfie, a psychopath who preys on other patients; Penny, a
17-year-old unwed mother; Carrie, a teen cutter with strange obsessions about
rats; Joyce, a young married mother enthralled with "10 ways of
suicide"; Drew, a young man facing a stiff prison sentence for possession
of marijuana; and D.J., a 42-year-old mentally challenged man and 25-year
resident of Cherokee, among others.
Finally released
from the institution, Jennifer flees Iowa and settles in Pennsylvania, where
she still lives today.
As young Jennifer
narrates her late 1960's memoir, how will the older and wiser Jennifer, now
voluntarily returning to Cherokee as a visitor, reconcile that painful time in
her history with her current ordinary life as a wife, mother, grandmother, and
teacher?
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