You Had To Be There: From Web Town To Psych Ward - A Memoir

by Terrence McCarthy

Terrence McCarthy was a newspaper reporter, then made a career change. He became an advertising copywriter and worked his way up to creative director. After working in journalism and advertising, McCarthy made another career change; he became a counselor on a locked psychiatric unit in Massachusetts. You Had To Be There chronicles how the author made those career changes. The book begins in McCarthy's hometown, a New England mill town whose nickname is Web Town, after the elastic once made in its mills. The author writes about growing up in that town, of the four years he served in the Air Force, his years as a reporter, and as an ad man. You Had To Be There takes readers behind the locked doors of a psych unit, one of the most dangerous workplaces in the United States. McCarthy describes how the unit on which he worked gained a reputation as a humane place where patients, whose diagnoses ranged from depression to schizophrenia, got treatment and, in most cases, got better. McCarthy also describes his struggle with depression and anxiety, and how he tried not to let those " issues " interfere with the arcs of his careers. There is much humor in this book. Much of the humor was found on the unit. Laughs and grins on a locked ward? You had to be there.

284 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2010

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes when I'm with my friend Bob and his wife Penny, she will interrupt him saying “TMI, Bob.” Too much Information. So when Bob and I get together without Penny we exchange TMI and tell the whole story, sometimes for the third or fourth time. I think it's in those long detours to explain that Bob and I learn about each other and tell each other who we really are.

Terrence McCarthy's memoir “You Had to Be There” is TMI. McCarthy's memoir is incredibly honest. In reading it we learn who Terrence McCarthy really is. In his unpolished style with detours and repetitions McCarthy seems unconsciously to reveal more and more about himself.

Born at the beginning of the Baby Boom, growing up in an unremarkable town in an ordinary family McCarthy is in some ways a Baby Boomer Everyman. It isn't the usual memoir we read, grunts in Vietnam, famous reporters or writers, movers and shakers, people who make history or stand in the middle of it. But he's not Everyman, he's Terry McCarthy and in reading the book he has written we come to know Terry McCarthy like a good friend.

If I were teaching a class about the 60s and 70s in America I would assign “You Had to Be There” as required reading. It is full of anecdotes that make the era real. He struggles with his inner demon and goes from one college to another and finally drops out. He joins the Air Force and goes to Myrtle Beach and then England while Vietnam is raging. He gets out of the Air Force and is lost at home, finding a job in a local factory or mill, meets his future wife in a local watering hole, finishes college, becomes a journalist, a copywriter and then quits and works for 11 years in a locked psych ward as a counselor.

It's not the stuff of history but in fact it really is, an ordinary life in extraordinary times, lived well and with great awareness. It is ordinary and good people like Terrence McCarthy who make an age what it is and in this Terrence McCarthy is an extraordinary person, a person I enjoyed getting to know.

I hope that McCarthy gives us a sequel, this book brings us to the middle of a good life, and with a sequel we can share with McCarthy the insights of growing old. More information, please.

[Glenn]

Among other places, Easthampton is featured by a friend I met many years ago because of our connection to Web Town.