Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family's Schizophrenia

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Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family's Schizophrenia

by Patrick Tracey (Goodreads Author)

3.34 · rating details · 128 ratings · 50 reviews

In this powerful, sometimes harrowing, deeply felt story, Patrick Tracey journeys to Ireland to track the origin and solve the mystery of his Irish-American family's multigenerational struggle with schizophrenia.

For most Irish Americans, a trip to Ireland is often an occasion to revisit their family's roots. But for Patrick Tracey, the lure of his ancestral home is a much ...moreIn this powerful, sometimes harrowing, deeply felt story, Patrick Tracey journeys to Ireland to track the origin and solve the mystery of his Irish-American family's multigenerational struggle with schizophrenia.

For most Irish Americans, a trip to Ireland is often an occasion to revisit their family's roots. But for Patrick Tracey, the lure of his ancestral home is a much more powerful need: part pilgrimage, part investigation to confront the genealogical mystery of schizophrenia–a disease that had claimed a great-great-great-grandmother, a grandmother, an uncle, and, most recently, two sisters.

As long as Tracey could remember, schizophrenia ran on his mother's side, seldom spoken of outright but impossible to ignore. Devastated by the emotional toll the disease had already taken on his family, terrified of passing it on to any children he might have, and inspired by the recent discovery of the first genetic link to schizophrenia, Tracey followed his genealogical trail from Boston to Ireland's county Roscommon, home of his oldest-known schizophrenic ancestor. In a renovated camper, Tracey crossed the Emerald Isle to investigate the country that, until the 1960s, had the world's highest rate of institutionalization for mental illness, following clues and separating fact from fiction in the legendary relationship the Irish have had with madness.

Tracey's path leads from fairy mounds and ancient caverns still shrouded in superstition to old pubs whose colorful inhabitants are a treasure trove of local lore. He visits the massive and grim asylum where his famine starved ancestors may have lived. And he interviews the Irish research team that first cracked the schizophrenic code to learn how much–and how little–we know about this often misunderstood disease.

Filled with history, science, and lore, Stalking Irish Madness is an unforgettable chronicle of one man's attempt to make sense of his family's past and to find hope for the future of schizophrenic patients.(less)

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published August 26th 2008 by Bantam (first published August 19th 2008)

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Aug 11, 2008

Brian rated it

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Jul 07, 2008

Alison rated it

Shelves: adults

I did learn an interesting bit or two about schizophrenia from this book. Patrick Tracey's accounts of his family's experiences with what is a truly terrible illness made for very compelling reading. But I ultimately wanted a lot more from this book than it delivered. "Searching" is exactly how this book felt much of the time, as Tracey was searching for something solid with no clear direction and no reasonable expectations of what he'd find on his journey. Unfortunately, this made for...more

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Aug 23, 2009

Kathryn Varuzza rated it

Last year I read 136 books, and I have to say this was my top pick for the best book of 2008, and I also have to say, it is probably the book that has had the most influence on my life. And I've read thousands of books in my life, both in English, Spanish, and even in Italian.

The best books have many levels to them. Patrick Tracey's book tells the story of his search for the roots of the schizophrenia in his family. It is a journey through Ireland. Patrick Tracey is an amazing writer...moreLast year I read 136 books, and I have to say this was my top pick for the best book of 2008, and I also have to say, it is probably the book that has had the most influence on my life. And I've read thousands of books in my life, both in English, Spanish, and even in Italian.

The best books have many levels to them. Patrick Tracey's book tells the story of his search for the roots of the schizophrenia in his family. It is a journey through Ireland. Patrick Tracey is an amazing writer, and once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down until you finish it. It is sad, and might make you cry; but what makes it my top pick of all books of all time (so far) is he is an inspiration, and he educates people. He helped me to accept my half Irish/half Lebanese family for what it was. I think all of us feel ashamed for something in our family trees, alcoholism, mental illness, child abuse, whatever, and he showed me that if he could accept what he has had to accept about his family, and work through his own struggles and still survive. We all can. This book should be on the New York Times Best Sellers list, I don't know why it isn't. And you should go buy it. This is a book you will want to keep. And you don't have to have schizophrenia in your family, or be Irish for you to enjoy this book. It has changed what I thought about schizophrenia, as well as other mental illnesses, and it has made me more aware, and more sensitive to everyone, and their families who suffer from mental illness.

There is still so much stigma associated with schizophrenia. Society is still so ignorant and insensitive towards not only schizophrenics and their families but to other people who are suffering from other mental illnesses as well. I am hoping that people will read this book, and change their attitudes towards mental illness.

When I finished reading this book I felt very grateful to Patrick Tracey for having had the courage to tell his, and his family's story to the world, and he inspired me to accept my family for exactly what it is. It led me to talk to my mother about all of our relatives on both sides of the family, because my mother is the last one left of her generation. And I hope it will inspire other people to do the same in their families. You have to stop feeling ashamed of your family, and start accepting it for what it is, whatever that involves. As they say, the truth will set you free.

The best books entertain, enlighten, inspire, and educate. And Patrick Tracey's book does all these things. Go buy it, and read it now, and don't be afraid of the title.

I think a lot of people are afraid of this book. I think they are afraid that it is one of those sad, tragic, poor me memoirs. It is not. Yes, it is heartbreaking what Patrick Tracey has had to endure, but at the end of the day, his book will not depress you and make you wallow in despair, he will enlighten and inspire you to accept yourself, your family, and whatever issues that you and your own family have had to deal with, and you will never look at schizophrenia in the same way again.
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Aug 11, 2010

Cari rated it

Shelves: 2010, family, ireland, mental-illness, travel

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Stalking Irish Madness is a good read, one that at times is incredibly gripping, but it falls short of the excellence it could have achieved. The family history is deftly handled, emotional without being draining, keeping the first third of the book tightly focused and moving at a brisk pace. At that point, I couldn't put it down. The shadow cast over this family by schizophrenia is tangible, and Tracey beautifully presents the dread and ultimate heartbreak as two of his sisters, one after th...moreStalking Irish Madness is a good read, one that at times is incredibly gripping, but it falls short of the excellence it could have achieved. The family history is deftly handled, emotional without being draining, keeping the first third of the book tightly focused and moving at a brisk pace. At that point, I couldn't put it down. The shadow cast over this family by schizophrenia is tangible, and Tracey beautifully presents the dread and ultimate heartbreak as two of his sisters, one after the other, succumb to the disease.

Unfortunately, as soon as the book shifts and he reaches Ireland, the narrative slows to a crawl because there isn't any narrative. Lip service is paid to a search for family and bloodlines, but it's not a longing for home or his own family, really, more of a scientific search for mitochondrial DNA (mentioned several times in the second half), which allows the earlier warmth and energy to slip away. With no clear idea of what he's looking for, Tracey loses sight of the thread, partially beause he has no idea what he wants to find or what he can reasonably expect to find by roaming the Irish countryside. The writing wanders around in circles along with the writer, and the book suffers for it.

Of note, it's really nice to read a travel memoir of Ireland that doesn't center on drinking. (Although, I'll be honest, I love those, too.)

While in Ireland, mixed in amongst various meetings and exchanges taken from his experiences, Tracey lays out bits and pieces of Irish history, good additions that support his process without dragging down the story. Perhaps a bit vague, but for a history buff like me, that's a relief. The general outline of the famine is good to have with a work like this; no one needs fifty pages detailing it. Tracey never seemed to feel the need to prove out intelligent he is, and I very much appreciated that. Tracey also presents an interesting link between schizophrenia and Ireland--or more specifically, Ireland's extreme and heartbreaking nineteenth century history. I actually wish he had gone into more depth on this aspect.

In addition to the history, there is a fair amount of Irish fairy lore included in the text, including an explanation of the term "away with the fairies." I adored that, especially as his presentation was light without being derisive or New Age-y. Fantastic.

Unfortunately, the author doesn't seem to have the knack for describing those little moments during travel, the personal and the meetings, the interaction with the local residents and environment, that make travel memoirs so intriguing. More often than not, when Tracey presented his encounters, they felt repetitive and my eyes glazed over. There didn't seem to be a point to telling us about many of these moments, they fell flat, and it's entirely possible that Tracey didn't know the point, either. Fewer of these and more focus on the family he left behind, not just throw away comments bemoaning the fates of his sisters, would have been nice.

When Tracey returns to Boston and his sisters, he again picks up the narrative from the beginning, the one that got lost while he was in Ireland. There is a return to the warmth and focus that was there in the beginning, which is excellent but a little too late. I wish he could have held onto that throughout his travels; the book would have held together much better and the resolution would have been much more satisfying. I liked this part very much, I just wish Tracey would have been more comfortable with it in order to give us more.

When I finished, I wasn't quite sure what this was supposed to be, which left me feeling a little uneasy. Tracey attempts to transcend genre with a book that is part memoir, part family history, part mental health study, part history lesson, and part travelogue, an excellent idea that unfortunately gets bogged down by all the things it wants to be but doesn't quite manage. Tracey is a capable writer, with a deft (if a bit purple) hand, and I think the connecting narrative thread got lost in the midst of a project that turned out to be overly ambitious.(less)

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Oct 27, 2009

Sheila rated it

I was lucky enough to find this book at my local library, within just couple of weeks of seeing its title in an MSNBC news article and wondering - what the hell does being Irish have to do with being schizophrenic?

First time I'd ever heard mention of any link between the two.

What follows is a heartbreaking account of the author's very personal experience with schizophrenia as it invades the lives of his sisters - the latest victims in his irish-american family's battle ...more

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Mar 21, 2009

Jenny rated it

Shelves: abandoned, book-club

I made it most of the way through but couldn't find enough steam to finish the book.

The problem with this book is that it defies being one genre and could be many - travelogue, family memoir, researched nonfiction - but doesn't do well at any of them. Some of the lines he writes are awful, including the memorably terrible, "I place this last candle behind the first two, knowing that behind my two sisters there go countless schizophrenics. And behind each one of them, on the same...more

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Jul 28, 2011

Marianne Meyers rated it

I couldn't put this book down for the first part of it, his Irish-American family's plight with schizophrenia, heartbreaking. Then the author as an adult goes on his own journey to Ireland, to figure things out,understand the roots of his family's schizophrenia, and here is where it starts to get muddled and directionless. He meets with all kinds of people, some who help him understand and others who don't, it becomes a weird travelogue as he tents down on campgrounds and rides around in a van...more

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Jun 25, 2009

Staci rated it

REALLY weird book. The author literally goes to Ireland and wanders around, hoping to run into people who may have known his ancestors...in hopes of getting more clarity on the mental illness in his family. Obviously that stuff is pretty thin so the rest of the book seems to be rounded out in Irish history, which is interesting, but still less interesting than the family history stuff. Not done yet...

**

6/25/09 I finished this book last night. He finally returned to the fa...more

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Feb 22, 2010

Trena rated it

After I finished The Gargoyle I decided to do a little non-fiction reading on schizophrenia. This book was on my to-read list. Perfect!

The author comes from a family with a long and voracious line of schizophrenia, including a great-great grandmother, grandmother, and two of his four sisters. He is a layperson, but obviously has a strong interest in the disease. He decided to take a trip to Ireland, the family's ancestral home, to see if he can learn anything.

The firs...more

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Aug 08, 2008

Patrick Tracey rated it

· (Review from the author)

Recommends it for: anyone baffled by madness

Recommended to Patrick by: myself, I wrote it

Well . . . I am the author, so I'll simply say that this is the book I was born to write. And I'll finally exhale and give myself a pat on the book. Our family has been pulverized by schizophrenia, the most severe form of mental illness, which follows a hereditary line from Boston back to Ireland . . . two of my sisters, an uncle, a grandmother, and her great-grandmother before her, who fled Ireland in the famine and came to Boston, unpacking her schizophrenic gene bank here.

In my...more

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Apr 08, 2009

J.A. rated it

Shelves: arc, irish-influences, madness-maddened

A natural follow up to My Father’s Paradise, this book is also written by a journalist investigating his family’s heritage. Patrick Tracey traveled to Ireland instead of Iraq, searching for the origins of schizophrenia rather than Jewish tradition, but ultimately the two books share a similar theme: personal reconciliation to a previously rejected familial trait. The stark difference in the two stories is that Sabar could converse with his primary source, his father, whereas Tracey could not. Sc...more

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Nov 21, 2008

Janet rated it

Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Janet by: Librarything

To my surprise I truly enjoyed this book. I probably would have overlooked it at the bookstore, even though I like memoirs, but now I will look twice. I enjoyed the family history as well as Irelands history. I never knew of this plight in the Irish community and I learned quite a bit about this disease. I felt the pain and anxiety that Tracey conveyed at finding his family falling prey to this horrible disease. I admire him for going in search of answers, even as far as traveling overseas and s...more

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Jan 22, 2012

Kristine Kucera rated it

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. The beginning really set the tone, the middle was a lot of nothing, and the end was neat and orderly. It seemed like a lot of set-up for no return. I really thought I was going to learn more when the author went to Ireland. I have yet to understand the point of this trip - except to get him to come back home to Boston. The writing was good and the story very compelling - I just wished the book offered more...

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Feb 16, 2009

Angie rated it

Shelves: memoir, psychology, all_time_favorites, non-fiction

If you have struggled with your understanding of this terrible disease, you must add this to your booklist. Patrick has written what many of us have thought about. Our survivor guilt. Our inability to make sense of this disease. Our wonder for future scientific discoveries.

I learned and confirmed much in the pages of this journey.

And I thank Patrick for going through the heartbreak of writing it.

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Jul 23, 2011

Margaret Sankey added it

Fourth-genre memoir in which Tracey travels to Ireland and finds that his schizophrenia-laden family tree hails from an area in Ireland where this this many times the national (or American average), as well as the origin location of many Irish legends involving faeries, talking wells and other things that just might be the schizophrenia talking, as well as one of the areas most tragically blighted by the potato famine, possibly exacerbating the inbreeding and the onset of the disorder. None of ...more

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Jul 24, 2011

Christine Bowles rated it

Shelves: my-book-shelf

"God doesn,'t save you from drowning just to kick you to death on the beach."

Such an amazing book! The first part was a little hard to take as he went through everything his family had been through due to schizophrenia. But part two as he travelled was insightful, inspiring, and incredible. And Part three was a good and hopefilled ending that made me smile.

I am so glad I picked this book up and took the time to read it through, it oepned my eyes a little more. T...more

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Aug 25, 2011

Becky rated it

Shelves: read-2011

A book that combines family history research and mental illness should be the perfect book for me, but I found this boring. I can't explain why, but I was so disappointed. There is an art to writing compelling nonfiction, and this books proves that with even the most fascinating subject matter, it's possible to write a boring book.

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Dec 30, 2008

Dwhren rated it

The book started out interesting with the author detailing the history of schizophrenia in his family. Then it got much less interesting after he begins detailing a trip to Ireland where his ancestors came from. He talks about the history of Ireland and the prevalence of mental illness during a certain period of time. He visits places his family is from looking for unknown extremely extended family members who may be able to shed some light on the prevalence of schizophrenia in his family.

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Mar 17, 2009

Gayle rated it

If you are Irish, if you know someone who is, or if you like to laugh and cry at the same time, buy two. You will want to share it before you finish it. This is one of those books that has you talking to yourself, even if you are not sufferin' the Irish Madness.

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Mar 17, 2009

Greg rated it

While it's not perfect, this book is well worth reading. It's about questions not answers, being among the survivors not a victim and the search for acceptance if not understanding. There is no neat Hollywood ending and while you learn some things about schizophrenia and Irish history, that isn't really the point. The author's quest is quite personal but also raises important questions about how we view and deal with a disease that strikes at the core of what we believe makes us human beings.

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Jan 13, 2012

Felicity Green rated it

Absorbing, kind of depressing memoir. Keep in mind that I myself am an Irish American from a family with a history of bipolar disorder, so it was really, really gripping for me. Phew. A million miles from my usual escapist fare and worth the journey.

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Jun 08, 2009

Angela rated it

Shelves: 610s-health, 900s-history, 921s-biographies

Interesting but very poorly edited--keeps repeating. There were a few pages toward the back that actually dispelled or reinforced the concept that the Irish have more schizophrenia than the general population through some good investigative reporting.

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Feb 25, 2009

Padraic rated it

Liked it some. Didn't like it some. Fascinating insofar as he is able to nail down his heritage - not a simple matter for the Irish American, as it took me 12 years of research. Not so fascinating when he dissolves into speculation. Oh well.

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Sep 23, 2010

Brisbride13 rated it

I bit disappointing in the sense that he didnt really discover much in the way of tracing his family back to the original "mad mary" but having personal experience with the disease and being Irish..very interesting work.

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Jun 07, 2009

Angeldauria rated it

A thought provoking and insightful read on both schizophrenia and the search for ones roots. As one who feels divided amongst cultures of Norway, German, Irish and ??? I can identify with the search of ones self.

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Mar 07, 2011

Joann rated it

Interesting to me as I am a former mental health nurse. I am also going to Ireland so interested in the names and sites. Lots of info about schizophrenia.

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Feb 21, 2010

Cheryl rated it

Shelves: memoir-biography, non-fiction, travel-memoir

This was an enlighting read. If you know anyone diagnosed with schizophrenia - then this book will mean a lot to you. Lots of good Irish history too.

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Jun 02, 2010

Leabelle rated it

After leaving the nest, two of the author's sisters return home with schizophrenia. The author travels to Ireland in search of the family history of the disease and along the way comes face to face with Irish custom and decorum around 'mentioning' the topic of the illness as well as some wonderful anecdotes.

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May 15, 2009

Monica Brennan rated it

Hooo boy, could I have used this book years and years ago. Better late than never! Extremeley readable; nothing intimidating.

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Apr 13, 2009

Cathy rated it

I was more interested in this book because 1) I had a cousin with schizophrenia and 2) I like stories about Ireland. Easy read and had some information on current medical ideas behind the disease.

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