Four Books I Recommend for Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Awareness Month in Canada (and the US), and I thought back to a few of the books I’ve read that highlight important and genuine aspects of mental illness and wellness. These are books that centre mental health, or feature it in a meaningful way. What unites these four books for me is the realistic portrayal of the struggle: the voices of fictional characters, a memoirist and a physician who have written–rather beautifully but without artifice–moving, memorable and important narratives.

That’s about all that unites these four books, though! They vary wildly in style and tone, and you’ll have to read through and see if one appeals to you. They’ve all stuck with me. 

Aloha Vietnam by Elizabeth Nguyen (The Unbound Press, 2022)

Hawaiian-born Anh is 17 when she has her first bipolar manic episode, difficult both for her and her mother Xuan, who fled post-war Vietnam as a refugee. Both have much emotional territory to negotiate as the novel takes us through the next few years. The portrayal of Anh’s illness was genuine and oh so accurate. I can see author Nguyen’s Psychiatric training here, as the descriptions of psychiatric illness, hospitalization and treatment were true to life. As a retired mental health professional, it was good to see the sensitive portrayal of Anh’s struggles and successes. It’s stigma-fighting!

When I closed the book, I immediately thought, “What a beautiful reading experience.” I’m so impressed by Nguyen’s talent here: poetry, a captivating and sensitive novel, and cover art.

Last Winter by Carrie Mac (Random House Canada, 2023)

I experienced an uncomfortable yet exhilarating mix of dread, crushing sadness and solidarity with being human while reading this unputdownable novel. This is the story of a family of three: mother Fiona, father Gus and eight-year-old Ruby, their intelligent, selectively mute daughter. They live in a small BC town where the winters are fierce and Mt. Casper looms over the whole place. Gus takes Ruby and her schoolmates on a hiking trip and all are buried by an avalanche except for Ruby and two others.

I chose to feature this novel for the depiction of Fiona’s Bipolar Disorder; she’s struggling, and continues to do so throughout. What look like frustratingly bad decisions follow from the influence of her symptomatic illness, her traumatic history, and how she’s learned to cope in her life. I think stories of all folks with mental illness (and that includes many of us or someone we know) can be told even when they don’t follow a “journey to wellness” arc cleanly. In fact, that’s what gives this story its humanity, valuing everyone and giving them voice.

This is an unfailingly bleak novel, as the shadow of the mountain and the impending avalanche predict doom, but there is beauty in the frigid landscape just as there is grace in this family of three and the people who support them. I found this novel deeply moving; everyone is doing the very best that they can in a situation where there are no promised happy endings. This is the definition of “as good as it gets.” In this place of ordinariness and imperfect reality, I found profound humanity.

Mercy Gene by JD Derbyshire (Goose Lane Editions, 2023)

Derbyshire is a Vancouver-based writer, playwright and comedian. Their biography notes they are, “a mad activist, whose work examines mental health, neurodiversity, queerness and gender exploration.” Mercy Gene is their first novel, based on their stage play Certified (which I saw in 2019 and loved). It is a work of autofiction, with imagined scenarios, lists, poetry and literal recountings.

The book is framed around Derbyshire’s experience of mental health in their life: the origin story of their multiple, fluctuating diagnoses; and the birth of their inner voices which seem to constantly berate. The writing is sharp, pointed and punchy–sometimes a direct hit, a literary knock-out blow. Some chapters would stand on their own as beautiful flash-fiction pieces. Derbyshire will start with an idea, take it through winding and twisting paths, and end up at an unexpected destination.

Ever so gradually, Derbyshire shows us healing. I found this book impossible to read without questioning my own deeply held tenets of what mental health is. We all have a different narrative, with different internal experiences, and all with different causes and conditions. Mercy Gene is JD’s unique story, and I felt privileged to visit it.

Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health Care in Medicine by Damon Tweedy (St. Martin’s Press, 2024)

This is the book that I would have loved to write if I wanted to tell you how it is to become a Psychiatrist. I didn’t write such a book, but Dr. Tweedy did, and it’s fantastic. If I were to quote the parts of Dr. Tweedy’s second book Facing the Unseen that felt extremely relevant to me, I’d have to copy and paste the entire book here. I suppose that’s my way of saying that I really loved this nonfiction look at Tweedy’s medical training to become a Psychiatrist and his first years in practice, and if you’re interested in this topic, I’d highly suggest you pick this one up.

Tweedy highlights the disparities that face Psychiatry and its patients in the face of a bias towards non-psychiatric medicine: the divide between mind and body, where the body is prioritised. It’s a false dichotomy, of course, but his examples are pointed, and his experiences–along with my own–don’t lie. He questions our tendency to prescribe meds rather than psychotherapy, to stigmatise our patients with substance use disorders, to neglect the physical health of people once they are labelled with a psychiatric diagnosis.

I respect the fact that Tweedy raises legitimate questions–ones that present themselves during medical school and residency training–without inflammatory rhetoric. He gets that the mental health system is under-resourced! Highly recommended.