The Edge of Every Day

The debut of an important new literary voice: an extraordinarily affecting, fiercely intelligent memoir that unflinchingly traces the path of the schizophrenia that runs in the author's family.Against the starkly beautiful backdrop of Anchorage, Alaska, where the author grew up, Marin Sardy weaves a fearless account of the shapeless thief—the schizophrenia—that kept her mother immersed in a world of private delusion and later manifested in her brother, ultimately claiming his life. Composed of exquisite, self-contained chapters that, cumulatively, take us through three generations of this adventurous, artistic, and often haunted family, Theory of Mind is an inquiry into our assumptions about how the mind can and should work—and a referendum on the treatment of the mentally ill in our society. As she explores the contours of cognition, Sardy also pushes the boundaries of her prose: one chapter is composed of quotes from family members...