Quitting the Nairobi Trio

by Jim Knipfel

The author of Slackjaw chronicles six months spent by the author in a Minneapolis psychiatric ward following another failed suicide attempt, during which he observes the failings of modern mental health practices and shares the insights of fellow patients. Reprint.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Humor, Mental Illness, Biography, Adult, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2006

Reviews

[Andrea Irvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book while browsing in a bookstore and was intrigued. I had never heard of the author, but bought it on an impulse. I very much enjoyed reading this memoir about the author's stay in a mental hospital in the late 1980s. He is a keen observer and very reflective, raising interesting issues particularly about what "madness" or "insanity" is and also what care he was actually provided. His clear description of his psychotic break are also fascinating - like a very clear description of a dream, actually. I found it easy to read and compelling. Interesting to read about an experience I probably will never have. Looking forward to reading his first memoir, Slackjaw.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fan of Ernie Kovacs and author Jim Knipfel I knew I'd get around to this book eventually. I'm glad I finally did. "Quitting the Nairobi Trio" is a grim, yet humorous, memoir that details Knipfel's stay in a locked mental ward after another failed suicide attempt. Although not as gruesome as other tales of such institutions, the daily routine with occasional interruptions of spasmodic violent or erratic behavior, and the author's periodic hallucinations, describe one of Dante's circles of Hell.

The story was so engrossing that I forgot to wonder where the Nairobi Trio fit in. That question is answered near the end of the book. The chapter "Mi, So, La" did such an excellent job of pulling it all together that I found myself humming "Solfeggio." Well worth the wait.

[S. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, the most effective aspect of Quitting the Nairobi Trio - a personal account of author Jim Knipfel's experiences in a psych ward after a failed suicide attempt - is that Knipfel restricts descriptions of these experiences (including delusions and hallucinations) to how he perceived them at the time that they occurred. This not only goes a long way towards illustrating his true state of mind at the time, but makes it easier read the emotional turmoil behind the analytical tendencies of mental illness as filtered through the mind of an intellectually curious student of philosophy. self-reflection cannot occur without self-deprecation, and Knipfel does not shy away from this important element. Above all else, Knipfel's accounts of this period of his life is handled with a dark yet ultimately optimistic humor that loses touch with humanity, and an end to the story that does not pretend to be an end to the story.

[W.B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is grim but funny. I like this guy.

[Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves a place alongside other mental health classics; The Eden Express, Brain on Fire, and the fictionalized (but based on family experience) Challenger Deep, which is a young adult book. Jim Knipfel is a funny, and sharp writer. He is a person who seems to embrace humility while still critically looking at the world around him. I loved every page. I highly recommend his book on becoming blind (these events take place before that in his timeline) which is called Slackjaw.

[Anthony O’Brien]

Interesting to a point. Memoir of a 6 month stint in a US psychiatric ward. Jim Knipfel says he enjoyed it but it’s hard to see how. The nurses are truly awful, there are no characters to empathise with. There are sections on Lacan that seem like they are supposed to be interesting but they are not.

[livestreamsuicide · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dachte am Anfang das wäre so ein Comedyscheiß und ich würde das Buch eh nicht mögen, habs nur wegen dem Namen genommen. Tatsächlich ist dieses Buch aber total gut. Wie die Welt damals war ist auch spannend zu lesen, und die Art der Geschichtenerzählung ist wirklich cool.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Twas a quick and painless read with an eccentric and (mostly) affable narrator relating some humorous catch-22s, but:

(1) It wasn't nearly as funny as the quotes on the front and back covers suggest. There's no denying the guy has some unusual viewpoints, but I wouldn't say I laughed more times than I could count on one hand. (Of course, humor is different for everyone, blah blah.) I found It's Kind of a Funny Story, Ned Vizzini's fictionalization of his own stay in a mental health facility, much funnier...and, really, better in every possible way.

(2) The other people in the psych ward were dehumanized by the writing. This was the most difficult thing for me to forgive about the book. I get that calling them "nutjobs" and such is part of the author's style (which was sometimes used to be self-deprecating), but it often felt like he was simply having fun at the other patients' expense. This rarely amounted to more than documenting their behavior, with no artistic or creative spin. Yes, most of the characters silently followed their same routines day after day--some of them unresponsive to whatever else is happened around them--but, the way Knipfel writes it, he acted very much in the same way. If he were more convincing in the moments he turns the critical eye on himself--he does, but usual with a less-than-profound "Yeah, I'm a lunatic and a freak. So what?" attitude--this would be easier to forgive. I think Knipfel tries to save this with the weirdly sentimental ending, but I have no idea why Knipfel finds it difficult to say goodbye to the psych ward and am totally unconvinced that he feels a closeness his fellow patients. When he learns he is being moved from the ward, he says, "I didn't want anybody to think I considered myself better than they were", (253-254) but that seems like what he was saying all along.

(3) The narrator doesn't seem to grow or change. When he arrives, he believes himself superior to his new surroundings in the psych ward, be it his detailing the other patients' bizarre routines or his reports on the seemingly pointless weekly meetings with the psychiatrist. While he has moments where he questions his own sanity and whether he "deserves" to be in there, the sense of superiority, of being smarter than this, doesn't really subside. His only take away seems to be the Nairobi Trio moment, but even that is flawed: He realizes, "I'm the annoyed conductor character who acts out when things get monotonous," but what it doesn't have is some plan of how to act differently when this happens in the future to both feel less trapped or resist the urge to attempt suicide again. I don't believe this memoir needs a storybook ending, but, with the ending it has, I'm left wondering why the book was written for public consumption. I have no idea what my take away was supposed to be other than "mental health has many catch-22s." He leaves the ward saying, "Only now, having reached the point where I could look back on it as a completed memory, did I understand how good it had been", (256) but the statement seems false: it is totally unclear how he believes the experience had been good to him.

Other than these, I can't say the recurring sections where Knipfel recounts his hallucinated experiences were entertaining. As a sober person reading them, the detail and number of pages they were given was unrewarding.

---

Favorite sections:
"Whenever I try to make things easier for someone, whenever I try to lighten a potentially grim scene, I end up overstepping my bounds. My intentions are misunderstood, and I'm dug in deeper." (66)

[speaking to a peer whose "talent" was cooing to attract pigeons] "'That's really something, Harold,' I'd tell him as I stepped carefully around the gathering flock of s#!tbats (as I knew them), withholding my urge to scream." (126)

"point of all this being that had Mrs Smudgen shared her theory [predictions of the future she labeled Tri-Zeta, discovered while exploring Inner Space] or her couplets with a psychiatrist, she would have been here with the rest of us. Most of us were no crazier than someone else, I was was beginning to think, except that we were stupid enough to share our quirks with a medical professional of some stripe. With a few obvious exceptions...the rest of us seemed just fine. Our only problem was that we'd made the mistake of going public." (131) I like this section even though it seems like "yeah, man" hippie pseudo-wisdom.

The "Bath of Surprise": "In the Middle Ages, the deranged were dropped unexpectedly through a trap door into a tub of ice water, in hopes that it would shock the demons right out of their system." (158)

(after saying something he wished he hadn't) "All I know is, talking is a habit I will break myself of one of these days." (178)

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've wanted to read this one for a while because I like Knipfel and I love the title. In fact, I think I had heard of this book and loved the title before I read any of Knipfel's books. (The title refers to a rather surreal skit from the old Ernie Kovacs show -- though I'm not old enough to have seen the show when it was on the air, I've seen clips and tapes of some of the old programs.) Knipfel is someone who's had enough health problems for several people, and this memoir deals with his mental health problems some years back. He has a singular worldview which is hard to describe; through his memoirs, he always seems a bit fragile and unearthly, like he's visiting from elsewhere. I got to meet him briefly at BEA (Book Expo America) this year and he seems rather sweet and meek. He signed a galley of Noogie's Turn to Shine for me, and I'm looking forward to reading that -- my old boss was his editor, and I read an early manuscript. That one's fiction, and I'll report on it once I've read it. But I'm a big fan of his memoirs (the others are Slackjaw and Ruining it for the Rest of Us).

[Derek Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim's an old pal, still my best (male) friend, so I may be given to a tilt in his favor. So this is the only one of his books (his second) that I'll review, because I think it's just plain brilliant.

Hewing closest to his own life (even closer than "Slackjaw," I think), it chronicles the time he served in a mental institution--how it was spent, why it was spent, who it was spent with and how things worked (or mostly didn't). It's markedly different from any other nuthouse book I've read: There's no fulmination against the evil overlords (who often deserve it), no self-pity, no sense of a redeeming turnaround in his life. It's simply the tale of what happened, told with an eagle eye for detail, a wealth of Jim's unique black humor and an underlying sympathy for the human condition, even when he most condemns it. The book also contains what I think is the most fascinating presentation of a long, involved hallucination that's even been put to print. It's Jim to the core.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this book. knipfel has had a fascinating life, and his readers are blessed with his storytelling skills. he writes with this beautiful, simple austerity that allows the crazy events to shine. also, it seems like he manipulates the subtext of the book as it progresses to correspond with the changes he underwent while in the ward.

[Mrs. Musrum's Mum Keleher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Knipfel has a very clear prose style and is dryly funny. The story of his last suicide attempt that resulted in a psychotic break and several months in a mental hospital in the 1980's. It's NOT "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or "The Bell Jar". He's not especially tormented by insanity or being in the hospital, but by his isolation from other people and the world. I enjoyed it.

[Bill Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Crazy good read, excuse the pun. I applaud Knipfel's recovery and his courage to write the story of his mental illness and time spent in the pysch ward. It was well-written narrative, including the parts where he describes (as the reader is forewarned) his hallucinations. Sad, funny, interesting. Read it in two days.

[Tom Zilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first seemed like your typical trapped in a mental hospital book but unlike the majority of those stories, he actually got something valuable out of his experience there-though probably not in a way you might expect.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A riveting look into the life of a schizophrenic, which helps in my line of work. I like memoirs, it was well written, the author is likable, I'll probably read it again some day.

[Elyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this after reading Jim Knipfel's hilarious book, Slackjaw. This book isn't as good, but I did enjoy the humorous retelling of his suicide attempt and hospitalization.

[Chadwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite memoirs. A punch-inna-face chronicle of a winter spent in the bug hatch. Books like this make you realize how thin is the line between sane and insane.

[Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book regarding the author's stay at a mental institution. Knipfel's prose makes the details all the more alluring.

[Mercurymouth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim is so east coast.

[Gal-ad · Rating 4 out of 5]

love the humor..

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl]

I just realized this book is in another language. I don't know how to remove it from my shelves :-)

[Meghan Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this years ago and it is still one of my favorite books. The prose is clean and the humor dark and dry. It's a fascinating look into 'crazy'.

[Gladys · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author clearly has a talent for making the mundane amusing.

[Debra B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovedvthis satire. Great imagery and anecdotes.

[Kerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little bit different take on being sane inside an asylum.

[Lily OnTheLam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as his first book, but still pretty good.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strong writing about one man's experience in a mental hospital.

[Leomar Tulang]

The story, although it's like a diary of an insane person, was fun to read.