Hurry Down Sunshine

Hurry Down Sunshine tells the story of the extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Michael Greenberg’s daughter was struck mad. It begins with Sally’s sudden visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city’s most sweltering months. “I feel like I’m traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to,” Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine. Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her–her mother and stepmother, her brother and grandmother, and, not least of all, the author himself.

Among Greenberg’s unforgettable gallery of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary aspirations. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine holds the listener in a mesmerizing state of suspension between the mundane and the transcendent.©2008 Michael Greenberg; (P)2008 Random House, Inc.

Very moving and insightful

I went into reading this book without any expectations, but find myself profoundly affected by this family struggle. Working in the medical field, it is as Michael stated in the book, the necessary detachment, medical professionals have to keep to maintain their sanity. This book help me look into the life of Sally from a human perspective. Wonderful!

Story telling

loved it had the listen and read door psychology class, definitely recommend if you're learning about mania

Lyrical and moving

A gorgeously constructed, imagistic, and lyrical account of Sally Greenberg's first manic break, this work, narrated by Michael Greenberg, is about acceptance and growth in the face of mental illness.

View behind the curtain

This personal rendering of Sally's struggle with mania is inspiring. It reveals that the journey is not hers alone, but also tangled with the journeys of her father and others in her family. Told with aching honesty in the voice of the writer, her devoted father.