Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness

Pete Earley

Apr 2007 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

“A magnificent gift to those of us who love someone who has a mental illness…Earley has used his considerable skills to meticulously research why the mental health system is so profoundly broken.”—Bebe Moore Campbell, author of 72 Hour Hold

Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son—in the throes of a manic episode—broke into a neighbor's house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law.

This is the Earley family's compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the “revolving doors” between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience—and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way.

Ratings and reviews

My class and I had to buy this book. I don't have all the content they do. I got ripped off

I've read this book 3 times (hardback copy, of course) and I still love it!

Informative and enlightening. Excellent insight of the perils of mental illnesses

About the author

Pete Earley, a former reporter for The Washington Post, is the author of several works of nonfiction, including the bestsellers The Hot House and Family of Spies, and the multi-award-winning Circumstantial Evidence. According to the Washingtonian magazine, he is one of ten journalist/authors in America "who have the power to introduce new ideas and give them currency." Earley is also the author of two novels.