A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise

A True Story About Schizophrenia

By: Sandy Allen, Pete Simonelli

Narrated by: Sandy Allen

“Compelling…A bracing work of art and a loving tribute” (Los Angeles Times), this propulsive, stunning book illuminates the experience of living with schizophrenia like never before.

Sandra Allen did not know their uncle Bob very well. As a child, Sandy had been told Bob was “crazy,” that he had spent time in mental hospitals while growing up in Berkeley in the 60s and 70s. But Bob had lived a hermetic life in a remote part of California for longer than Sandy had been alive, and what little Sandy knew of him came from rare family reunions or odd, infrequent phone calls. Then in 2009 Bob mailed Sandy his autobiography. Typewritten in all caps, a stream of error-riddled sentences more than sixty, single-spaced pages, the often-incomprehensible manuscript proclaimed to be a “true story” about being “labeled a psychotic paranoid schizophrenic,” and arrived with a plea to help him get his story out to the world.

“Searing” (O, The Oprah Magazine), “enthralling” (Star-Tribune, Minneapolis), and “a marvel” (Esquire), A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise shows how Sandy translated Bob’s autobiography, artfully creating a gripping coming-of-age story while sticking faithfully to the facts as he shared them. Sandy also shares background information about their family, the culturally explosive time and place of their uncle’s formative years, and the vitally important questions surrounding schizophrenia and mental healthcare in America more broadly. The result is a heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious portrait of a young man striving for stability in his life as well as his mind, and an utterly unique lens into an experience that, to most people, remains unimaginable.

“Thrilling…Gorgeous…a watershed in empathetic adaptation of ‘outsider’ autobiography” (The New Republic), A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise is a dazzlingly, daringly written book that’s poised to change conversations about schizophrenia and mental illness overall.

Beautiful, Empathetic & Fascinating

i loved this book! a tremendous first hand account of mental illness that should be required reading for everyone.

What an amazing gift to the world, thank you Bob and Sandra

I have been riveted and just finished same day I got the audiobook.

Such a wonderfully honest expose and the realness of it all kept me loving riding along to the really eloquently presented and developed expose of this one man’s life and the mental health struggles he and the human race faces.

I’m not typically a biography consumer but hearing Sandra speak of how she found the trees on This American Life this morning I was like “those, those are my people”.

Despite the somewhat intense subject matter it was really eye opening and fun throughout. I for one really appreciated a lot of “Bob’s” succinct prose about his experiences and love how Sandra would jump in with the data and recognition of where the world was at while it was all happening.

Great job, Sandra, and thank you for that journey today. It’s one of those rare gems that since it is so varied but at the same time real I just feel like I know a little bit more what a beautiful, scary, wonderful, and tragic thing it is to be human.

Great!

I really loved the life story about her uncle and his schizophrenia as I have a relative with the same mental illness I think that the author did a great job putting his writing and her riding together to explain what may have happened or not have happened according to his views it was interesting and fast reading

Engaging

Thank you for telling such a humanistic story about schizophrenia. Told in the words of the man who experienced it. What a great way to honour his life.

Perspective

Instead of looking for what makes someone wrong or different, we should appreciate alternative perspectives for challenging our own and forcing considerations which may not occur in a bleak, one thought society. This book explores this concept and is important in narrating a story which often goes untold.