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    He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him
    Unavailable
    He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him
    Unavailable
    He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him
    Audiobook6 hours

    He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him

    Written by Mimi Baird and Eve Claxton

    Narrated by Jane Alexander, Paul Boehmer and John Bedford Lloyd

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.

    Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized.

    Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage.

    Fifty years after being told her father would forever be "ill" and "away," Mimi Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. In time her fingers became stained with the lead of the pencil he had used to write his manuscript, as she devoted herself to understanding who he was, why he disappeared, and what legacy she had inherited. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the reaches of the mind and the redeeming power of a determined heart.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 17, 2015
    ISBN9781101890042
    Unavailable
    He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him

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    Reviews for He Wanted the Moon

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Beautifully written. Excellent read. Touching story of mental illness told through medical records, diary entries and a manuscript.
    • 5/5
      this beautifully written account of one man's suffering and treatment of manic depression during the early 1940s, as told years later by his daughter, who did exhaustive research. book is both heartbreaking and hair-raising, i found it hard to put down and, once i got into it, to pick up.
    • 4/5
      This book was a very interesting tale of a very sad man and the troubles faced by his family. Dr. Baird was a very intelligent almost genius of a man whose life and work was cut short by his bipolar disorder. This Taylor's not only about Dr. Baird but it is also about his daughter trying to piece together the holes in their family's history. While it is an interesting tale it is also a sad one and makes one glad to know that advances have been made in the diagnosis, care, and treatment for people suffering from such mental illnesses. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in mental illness and specifically bipolar disorder. It is told from the perspective of the patient first hand, from the facilities he was treated at, and from his daughter and family. A Very good read.
    • 1/5
      I was excited to read He Wanted the Moon based on its intriguing description. Dr. Baird a physician in the 1920's and 1930's was trying to prove that there is a biochemical component to manic depression and during this time he began to suffer from the disease himself. The description also explained of how he had a lobotomy and other extreme medical procedures while under treatment. Dr. Baird was institutionalized many times and I thought how interesting it would be to read about the doctor actually being the patient in this scenario and how he would handle these situations. It was highly disappointing the book was nothing like it is depicted. The book essentially just stated about Dr. Baird's day to day activities that consisted of sitting around and talking to other patients and his never ending thoughts. Any extreme treatments like his lobotomy are only vaguely mentioned at the end of the book. I expected the medical treatments to be major parts of the book as they should have been. This read was repetitive and tedious. I felt disillusioned by an author who described such a captivating novel, but all I got as a reader was a calamity of a read.

      "I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."
    • 2/5
      He Wanted the Moon is a memoir of sorts told by two people. The first half of the book is largely the memoirs of Dr. Perry Baird. The second half tells about how his daughter, the book's author, Mimi Baird, came to publish the manuscript of her father's book and how she came to terms with what she learned about her father through it.Dr. Baird was a well-known dermatologist at Boston, who had studied at Harvard University. He suffered from manic-depression. At some point, he decided to write a book about his experiences of a life in and out of mental institutions and in and out of manic and depressive states. The book he had been working on during his life makes up the first part of the book, which includes medical reports as well as his memoirs.Mimi Baird grew up without a father. Dr. Baird left when she was six years old, and she never quite knew where he went or why until young adulthood. Even still, he was not a part of her life, and while reading the second half of the book, you can sense the loss that she felt missing her father. I thought this second part of the book was the more interesting part of the book. It was compelling to read about her coming to terms with her father as a man and finally getting to know him.The first half of the book was much less interesting for me. I was already familiar with the poor treatment of the mentally ill during the first half of the twentieth century. That which Mimi probably thought would shock the reader wasn't particularly shocking to me. Yes, it is sad how poorly these people were treated, but it was such a well-known story already that I wasn't particularly interested in it.
    • 3/5
      Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the 1920s and 1930s until he descended into mental illness. This book tells his story both from his own transcript as well as his daughter who did not discover the truth about him until nearly fifty years after his death.This book tells the tragically sad story of a brilliant physician who has manic depression (bipolar disorder) as well as the often brutal treatment for the disease in the 1930s and 1940s. The first half of the book is the doctor's own transcript. The second half is told from the daughter's point of view and details how she researched her father's life and what she found. The book took her years to write. I found the first part more compelling than the second and was especially interested in the contrast in what the doctor perceived to be the truth and what the hospital notes stated to be the actual facts.Overall, I found this book a good read but not terrific. There is much the author still does not know about her father and most likely never will. Given the conditions of mental hospitals during that time, it is hard to say how much of either version of the events is actually true.
    • 4/5
      Excellent read. A good blend of the diary of a mentally ill patient (who is a physician) and the medical record. Very sad commentary on the state of psychiatric hospitals in the early 20th century.
    • 5/5
      If possible I would have given this book even more stars. Mimi Baird brought to life the legacy of her father Dr. Perry Baird. He suffered from manic depression in a time when treatment for his condition brought unbelievably cruel and barbaric treatment. Dr. Baird was researching his condition and writing a manuscript for a book he wished to have published. He was on the brink of discovery and had he more time before his illness progressed could possibly have found a breakthrough in the treatment of manic depression. Dr. Baird was an extremely intelligent and gifted doctor. The decision of the medical profession to have him subjected to a lobotomy was a travesty. At the time a lobotomy was thought to be a last resort treatment. His daughter, Mimi Baird, using the letters, medical history and stories from her father's friend brought to life the devastating story of her father. I believe in her determination to find her father she also found herself. She was raised in a time when insanity was to be hidden and never discussed. She lost her father when she was six years old but in reading the manuscript he left behind she was able to come to a kind of closure with her past. A truly inspiring story and one that I found quite difficult to put down as i was reading it.
    • 3/5
      Mimi Baird never really knew her father, Perry Baird, who abruptly went "away" when she was six years old. Over the course of her life she would learn her father was both a promising doctor and bipolar. She would not learn much else from her mother who remained mostly silent about her marriage to Dr. Baird.A "series of coincidences" lead Mimi to her father's manuscript: an account of his time being treated barbarically in several hospitals in New England in the 1940's. In between his manic episodes Dr. Baird remains in contact with several his medical colleagues hoping to shed light on the treatments that often did more harm than good. Dr. Baird begins research himself hoping to find a cause for bipolar disorder so that a cure or more humane treatment can be administered.About more than half of the book is Dr. Baird's writing and excerpts from his medical charts. Mimi admits that his writing has been edited for clarification. The last chapters are Mimi writing about what she remembers of her father, childhood, and her journey in bringing her father's life and work "to light and air."I was more interested in the Mimi part rather than her father's manuscript. I would have rated the book higher had she written, I guess you could say a traditional memoir, each chapter with her whereabouts and feelings at the time and then the corresponding pages from her father's life. I understand why she presented her father's work first and then tacked on the rest. But that's how the last few chapters felt: tacked on.In the end I craved more information about her father's life and her life too. Mimi doesn't go into detail about her father's childhood or her mother's childhood. Mimi mentions she married and had two children but makes no further mention of her husband. Mimi has a younger sister but never talks about how her sister feels (or if she feels anything at all) about Mimi researching their father. Mimi sought closure about her father but I'm not sure readers will feel any closure with this book at the end.
    • 4/5
      In her mid 50s, Mimi Baird received a box of papers written by her father some decades before. Now, her father had mysteriously disappeared from her life when she was a child - her mother divorced him and she married another man without ever really telling Mimi and her sister much about their father. Mimi found out that her father was a promising doctor who suffered profoundly from bipolar disorder, was hospitalized multiple times,and eventually lobotomized as treatment for severely manic episodes. She also found that her father, before his manic episodes became too severe to continue, had begun research into the biochemical causes of bipolar disorder, even publishing a paper with some interesting results years before John Cade's experiments leading to lithium treatment for the condition. He Wanted the Moon is part transcription of Baird's writing during his hospitalization (and a fascinating look into the mind of a person in the throes of a severe manic condition) and part her story of discovery as she learned about her father - good and not so good. Ultimately it's a tragic story, given the state of mental health care at the time, especially as his lobotomy was performed not so very long before lithium revolutionized treatment for bipolar patients.
    • 4/5
      Whoa, this book was difficult to read. I have a family member who is bipolar. Books that give voice to this illness give me a sense of understanding and perspective that's sometimes hard to have in the moment. Mimi Baird, at the twilight of her life, honors the father she barely knew by publishing his memoir years after his death. Her father's story is a tragic one. A brilliantly-capable, Harvard-educated physician, he had considerable promise and a big personality. However, he was severely manic-depressive and entered into a downward spiral of hospitalizations and 'state farm' commitments, escapes and 'treatment' that sometimes bordered on barbaric. He desperately tried to escape the literal and figurative confinement of his disease. Illness ended up taking everything from him - his freedom, his ability to practice medicine, his friends, his family and eventually, his life.Written by Dr. Baird at a period that he's confined against his will: "I cast about in every direction for whatever help I could find. I found none. I pray to God that in the future I shall be able to remember that once one has crossed the line from the normal walks of life into a psychopathic hospital, one is separate from friends and relatives by walls thicker than stone; walls of prejudice and superstition." That's heartbreaking and powerful. This book is recommended for those who have a connection to or interest in manic depression or care about someone who does.
    • 5/5
      Amazing book! I am not quite finished, so my full review will follow shortly. I about held my breath through the first 50 pages. So insightful into the treatment techniques of the state hospitals during that time and so insightful into the mind of the patient. A little hard to read at times, only because it is terrifying to imagine, either the treatment(s) or the illness, but very easy to read in terms of the flow of the book and the fact that you don't need to have any prior knowledge about manic depression.
    • 5/5
      Her father dropped out of her life when she was a young girl. Decades later, following his death she receives a transcript that her father had written. Having been a physician, he had begun experimenting on lab animals to look for the cause of mania. At the same time he began to exhibit manic depressive episodes himself. The transcript was his writings of his experience, the highs and the lows, the hospitalization so and treatments of the 1920s and 1930s. His daughter felt some closure with the writing of this book. Very interesting.
    • 4/5
      Interesting look at the inner mind of a mentally ill doctor and the state of the profession not so long ago.
    • 3/5
      I wanted more from _He Wanted the Moon._ I've actually not quite finished it yet, some weeks after receiving it, which says something given that I'm normally quick to finish a compelling book. The story of the author's father and his mental struggles contains some fascinating history, but his account is presented almost completely as a stand-alone document, with the daughter filling in some separate information from her own experience afterward. Even though she did not know him well, I wanted a more nuanced weaving together of her father's story and the historical context and her own story...understanding the larger context would have made her father's story more knowable. I'm still planning to completely finish the book, and perhaps that will change my mind, but I wished it were something more than it ended up seeming to be.
    • 3/5
      I'm happy that Baird was able to get this published, though a bit surprised. It was an interesting account, mostly a transcript of her father's writings while hospitalized. Not great writing, no great insights, either from him or from her. It left me a little flat - perhaps because it never achieved the hype on the front cover: "The madness and medical genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and his daughter's quest to know him." He wasn't a medical genius, and she never quite got to know him.
    • 3/5
      This was a fascinating story that too often does get swept under the rug by family members that are too embarrassed or ashamed by mental illness or more accurately, the stigma attached to it. And still to this day so many have a bleak understanding and outlook There all kinds of wonderful people with mental illness that have been contributing members of society and this book just reinforces that.
    • 5/5
      This book is more than a daughter's tribute to her father. It is a tale of mental illness, and how it can derail a life. When Mimi's father was six, she was told that her father, Perry, was "away." Suffering from manic depression, Perry was in a mental hospital, desperately struggling to remain sane. Perry's journal entries show us that he was very intelligent, a rising medical star, but had been sidetracked by the stigma and helplessness of mental illness. Overall, an interesting book, well worth picking up.
    • 4/5
      A daughters quest to understand the father that literally disappeared from her life. In 1944, Doctor Percy Baird was confined to a mental institution after a sever episode of mania. Mimi was only six when he was no longer in the home and was only told by her mother, that he was away. The first part of the book are all in her Father's writing, he penned down his experiences with his illness and his treatment at the institutions to which he was committed. What was amazing to me was how much he remembered, even while in his manic states. His brilliant mind was constantly at work.The second half of the book was how his disappearance effected her life. Of what her and her sister and mothers life was without him. How she decided to find out more about him and the actions she took. The situation itself was heartbreaking but the book was not written emotionally. It was very clear and concise.This was in 1944 and the treatment at these institutions were many times barbaric. Even if they didn't have the treatments available that we do now, it still seems to me that common sense would prevail and the realization that ice cold baths would not accomplish much medically. Although treatments help many today, the brain is still the area that is difficult to understand. The stigma about mental illness itself still prevails though there is small progress in that area. Though their are many new treatments it is still a hit and miss approach and many are still without treatment or at least effective treatment. A very good book for those looking for a better understanding of the bi-polar, as reading Baird's own words about a brilliant man with a brilliant mind in the midst of mania are informative. Only by sharing these experiences by those effected, as Mimi does, will the stigma of mental illness be removed.ARC from librarything.
    • 3/5
      I received this book through the Early Reviewers Program.He Wanted the Moon is part memoir, and part ode to Perry Baird. Mimi's autobiographical writings are interspersed with Perry's own thoughts and memoirs as well as Mimi's research on her father's life. Perry's voice is certainly the most engaging and provocative (though apparently heavily edited by Mimi)as he describes his manic and depressive episodes. His descriptions of treatments during his institutionalizations are horrifying and bleak. His insistence that they do more harm then good seems so obvious now, but must have been unpopular at the time. His eventual lobotomy is a terrifying testament to the lack of understanding and compassion for those with mental illnesses even within the past century. His story is fascinating and tragic. Mimi goes on to detail her father's medical accomplishments after describing his harrowing experiences. His scholastic excellence and medical research on Manic Depression (bipolar disorder) are a sharp contrast to the man of the rest of the book-who is truly spiraling out of control. Perry was not part of Mimi's life, and this was her attempt to know and understand her father. While I understand that this is a compelling story for most, and that this was a therapeutic exercise for a daughter, I felt like it would have been stronger with more of Perry and less of Mimi. Especially considering the title emphasizes him.
    • 4/5
      Won through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers. This book is incredibly interesting. Every time I dive back into it, it sucks me in. However it is a heavy read that may be necessary to take breaks from. Dr. Baird's personal writings add a riveting depth to the book. His true mental condition seeps out slowly over the course of his writings; for awhile, you seem to understand where he is coming from and catch yourself almost justifying his actions. His story is rather sad and tragic at times. A definite read if you are interested in mental illness.
    • 1/5
      This review is for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.This is the tragic story of Dr. Perry Baird, a brilliant doctor who suffers from manic-depression (bi-polar). His story is told through his "manuscript." It is also the tragic story of a daughter whose father disappeared from her life at the age of six. She is the author of the book and her story of discovery of her father makes up the remainder of the book.This is a difficult review to write as I was disappointed by the book. Perhaps I was expecting more insight into Dr. Baird's mental illness and his experimentation into the causes of it. Instead, his "manuscript" read more like "The Diary of a Mad Doctor."It is also likely that the book was a disappointment because of my skepticism of Dr. Baird's manuscript and it's story. According to both Dr. Baird and Mimi Baird, the manuscript was written, or at least partially written, during the doctor's institutionalization in Westborough State Hospital in 1944. However, all references to events during that time period,are in the past tense. So it was probably written at a later date, which calls into question Dr. Baird's memory of the events during his manic episodes. While he proclaims to have a clear memory of the events, it is more common to have none or little memories of the episodes.I have no doubt that the treatment of Dr. Baird during his stays in various institutions was extremely cruel. Whether or not his telling of his story was accurate shouldn't matter. But my skepticism jaundiced my reading of the book.It is a fascinating story and one that should be told. For me this book failed in doing so.
    • 5/5
      Such a sad and beautiful book and breathtakingly honest, which left me in awe.It begins as the story of Perry Baird and his manic depression. What I loved from the start is that the author has allowed her father's words to show him as a very real human being, rather than serving him up as a saint. He is smart and creative and passionate; he is also flawed, he fails and he stumbles like everyone else. But then this seemingly ordinary man becomes terribly troubled, and he is placed in an extraordinary situation as he is sent away and treated in the most inhumane way (I found it almost unbearable to read).Then comes the author's perspective. She has received a copy of her father's "manuscript" (mostly a collection of papers in disorder) and she becomes determined to learn his story. Her writing is stark and beautiful, and her yearning so sincere and poignant that many readers will be moved to tears.This is certainly a book about dealing with mental illness and its brutal treatment, providing a rare firsthand glimpse into a world of institutions of the 1940s and '50s. But it's also a story about family and loneliness and mystery and curiosity and one of love's greatest gifts: making certain that someone will never be forgotten.
    • 5/5
      A direct look at the effects and stigma of mental illness, this book is a labor of love as the daughter of a bipolar physician combines her father's memoirs and her own experiences and questions of what really happened to her family. Dr Baird's writings make their way through the family to his daughter, Mimi, in disarray. Dr Baird left behind his personal and medical insight in explicit accounts of harsh and barbaric treatment that were practiced on him in psychiatric institutions. Unfortunately, he lived in the mid twentieth century - a time of misbeliefs and the lack of scientific knowledge of bipolar disorder. A sad story of the breakup of family, pain, misunderstandings, and the loss of her father's genius unfolds in a clear and forthright style of writing. Mimi's quest was to know her father, make sense of his life and contemplate its effect on her. It takes many years, emotional conflict, and resolute research of public and private records. Uncomfortable to read, this is yet another instance of treating the unknown and fearful aspects of life with force and insensitivity - which never really works and usually makes things worse. An enlightening story.
    • 4/5
      my thanks to LibraryThing and to the publisher for my copyMimi Baird was just a little girl of six when her father, Dr. Perry Baird, a successful physician with a thriving practice, was taken away by two state troopers while having lunch at a country club one day in 1944. He wasn't under arrest, but rather the police were there to escort him to Westborough State Hospital in Westbourough Massachusetts. Dr. Baird was no stranger to "mental institutions," having already "been held" at three others before Westborough, and he suffered what was then called "manic breaks," now recognized as serious bipolar disorder. Using a combination of hospital/medical records, statements from Baird's friends, her own recollections and a treasure trove belonging to Dr. Baird, including his own manuscript that he wrote while hospitalized, Mimi Baird has put together a book about her father and his illness, relating how it affected her and her family especially since 1944 was the year he stopped coming home. Her father had always meant to publish someday, and now Ms. Baird has been able to fulfill his wishes some decades later. Since this book hasn't even been released yet, I won't be going into any great detail here about its contents, leaving that for interested readers to discover. I will say that the very best parts of this book come from Dr. Baird's own writings while hospitalized at Westborough and later Baldpate, a private hospital in Georgetown, MA. In many ways, what he describes while in Westborough begs a comparison to the action in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (complete with his own Nurse Ratched) both in terms of "treatment" and in the idea that the most important priority of those in charge is to get the patients to conform. He writes about being bound in straitjackets (from which he constantly attempted to escape), wrapped in cold wet sheets, and other standard regimens for the mentally ill that were extant at the time. Even more interesting though is how the reader can actually witness Dr. Baird's deterioration, not just in his worsening handwriting as described by his daughter, but in how his accounts of what's going on with him do not even come close to matching what his medical records say. As his conditioned worsens, he becomes delusional, and just how much so becomes quite clear while reading through his writings. But the book goes well beyond the medical aspects to reveal just how much stigma mental illness in the 1940s carried in normal society, and even in the personal sphere, where in this case, Dr. Baird's wife Gretta was told to "try to forget him", and in so doing, would never talk about her husband's condition, not even to her children. As much as I enjoyed reading Dr. Baird's personal account, considering that this book is in part a daughter's "quest to piece together the memoir and the man," her narration can sometimes come off as kind of cold and detached. There's a particular line in here where Ms. Baird talks about her mother naming her "the ice queen," and sometimes that iciness comes through onto the page. While there are a few moments of pure admiration and love that come shining through, sometimes I think the tone is much more matter-of-fact than one would expect from the feelings of a daughter devoted to her recovering her father's life story. All in all, I enjoyed reading this book. I can't actually speak to being in Ms. Baird's shoes, but I appreciate the fact that it must have been extremely tough for her to have to relive what her father suffered. On the flip side, I'd say that having people who remembered him so positively and with such affection must have been a blessing to her. I do have to comment about the fact that Ms. Baird is very open and honest about the editing of her father's work to make it more readable and concise. First of all, perhaps it might have been a more honest and gutwrenching account if even small portions could have been left unreadable, so that readers might have a better feel for Dr. Baird as his mental state eroded at times; second, I am always a little uncomfortable when I read that editors mess with primary documents like Dr. Baird's manuscript, since I'm of the opinion that these types of sources should always stand on their own with no alteration whatsoever. Definitely recommended -- this book is already garnering some pretty high ratings and readers seem to be loving it.
    • 4/5
      Mimi Beard put together HE WANTED THE MOON in an effort to understand her mostly missing father, who suffered from bipolar disorder (called a manic-depressive in those days of the 30s and 40s), and disappeared from her life when she was only 6 (her mother divorced and remarried). I say she 'put it together,' because she had a very accomplished co-writer in Eve Claxton and also cites a large number of other professionals who helped her get the book published, after she'd worked on it off and on for close to twenty years. I found the book rather interesting in that her father's writing gave you an intimate peek into the mental workings - ranging from nearly normal to meandering, disjointed and delusional - of a man in the harsh grip of bipolar disorder. Through Dr. Perry Baird's letters and journals you get a sense of both the highs and the lows of this devastating disease, as well as the primitive attempts to treat this then-mysterious ailment, using remedies (straitjackets, cold packs, 'narcosis,' and even lobotomies) he characterized (and quite rightly so) as 'barbaric.' The author describes how she could tell reading these worn penciled documents when her father slipped from normal to delusional by his handwriting, the way it went from neat and orderly to a wild, looping, near-illegible script. And there is obviously no doubt, in reading Dr. Baird's manuscript, that he was indeed quite insane. I kept wishing there had been a bit more input from the Mimi Baird herself in this book, but she (or her editor) apparently decided to keep her part to a minimum. I felt this was a mistake, but I could be wrong. In any case, without that more personal touch I was hoping for, the book was, in the end, only mildly interesting - an artifact of the early days of the treatment of mental illness. For readers like me who prefer a more personal touch in a tale of family insanity and mental institutions from an earlier era, I would recommend Steve Luxenberg's splendidly researched ANNIE'S GHOSTS: A JOURNEY INTO A FAMILY SECRET. But Mimi Baird did accomplish what she set out to do. She got her father's lost manuscript out there and published for a general audience. And she also emphasized that he did display flashed of genius via his published medical essays, and even was a pioneer of sorts in early experiments with the treatment of manic depression. She did not hide her father's story behind a wall of silence as her mother had done. It is obvious that she loved and admired her father even all these years later, and now, with this book, she has proven that.
    • 5/5
      Dr. Perry Baird was a promising dermatologist and medical researcher who had the misfortune of suffering from severe manic-depressive psychosis (now known as bipolar disorder) during the 1940s, a time during which effective medications were not yet available. During his manic phases, he was prone to violent rages, spending sprees and other impulsive, destructive behavior. For years Baird shuttled back and forth between various hospitals and the outside world, losing his family and medical license along the way. Finally, he was given a lobotomy that calmed him down, but took away his personality as well. He died a few years later, his promise as a man of science unfulfilled.Baird's daughter Mimi inherited the disorganized pages of the memoir her father wrote while hospitalized, "Echoes from a Dungeon Cell". She pieced the document back together and sought out his few surviving friends in order to interview them. He Wanted the Moon is the result of her years of work on this project.It is a harrowing story. Baird described in heartrending detail the daily indignities of life a mental hospital in the 1940's, including the agony of spending hours encased in cold packs or a straitjacket. Baird tried very hard to be "cooperative" in order to gain privileges and ultimately, his freedom, but the course of his illness was unrelenting. As a physician, Baird suspected that his illness had a physiological basis. During his healthier periods he tested this hypothesis through experiments that he designed himself. Modern science has since proven that his thinking on the subject was years ahead of its time. This is a sad but necessary book. I highly recommended it to anyone interested in the history of mental health treatment.
    • 5/5
      Much of this book was the original manuscript that Dr. Perry Baird wrote about his experiences in mental institutions in the 40s. That part of the book is fascinating. Dr. Baird, at points, is very articulate and describes the horrible treatment of mentally ill patients. While I have read other accounts of mental institutions, they always have been written from the viewpoint of healthcare workers or family members. This is the first account I have read from a person who actually went through these treatments and it was eye-opening.The rest of the book is written by Mim Baird about her experiences trying to create this book and trying to learn more about her father. This part of the book I found less interesting because it seemed that Mimi was concerned about not offending people and it felt like she never gave more than a superficial view of her emotions.
    • 5/5
      Mimi Baird, a senior citizen and grandmother, has traveled a long way in her life. In her 70s, she is realizing the dream of knowing her father and, at the same time, publishing her first book. HE WANTED THE MOON is a moving and, at times - heart wrenching - story. In the epilogue, the author says: "My editor had asked me to go back into my archive of my father's writings and to transcribe every single word that I could find there." One can hear the editor saying this - and for good reason. The sections written by Dr. Perry Baird - most of them when he was a patient at Westborough State Hospital in Massachusetts in the 1940s - are the core of the book.Mimi Baird's memoir of growing up mostly without a father, of living within a family where her father was never mentioned or, if he was, it was fleetingly and vague, is similar to other young girls being raised with absent fathers. The difference is that Mimi remembered her father; she was six when he "left" (was hospitalized). Dr. Perry Baird was a brilliant doctor with an active dermatology practice who also studied bipolar disease (then known as manic depression) and tried to find a biochemical cause for it. He had everything going for him: intelligence, personality, good looks, and a wife and two young daughters. Unfortunately, he had a psychiatric illness and was being treated for it during a time in history before the discovery of Lithium. The pages written by Dr. Perry Baird are chilling, terrifying, and superbly rendered. When he describes how he feels in his mania, the reader can almost ride along beside him in this unwanted adventure. When he is strapped into a straightjacket or given various treatments that sound like medieval torture, the reader cringes and feels for him. His cameos describing fellow patients, supervising psychiatrists, and staff at the State Hospital are clever, creative, and put the reader squarely in the "scene." One senses Dr. Baird's creativity, his sensitivity, and his ability to grasp what was being done to him while, at the same time, his inability to keep the disease from allowing him to accept treatment. One scene in which he - logically it seems to the reader - works at getting himself loose from the straightjacket is so vivid that the reader will feel as though he/she has been straightjacketed. Yes, Dr. Baird certainly knew how to write.Throughout the book, one feels hope. Perhaps a medication will be invented, perhaps his manic depression will go into a long remission, perhaps he will find a new psychaitrist with a different approach. All this hope creates suspense in the story of his life. When one reaches the chapter about the lobotomy, however, all hopes are dashed and the reader feels the letdown - strongly.How hard and yet how fascinating it must have been for Mimi Baird to relive her father's life through his old writings (luckily preserved) and his old medical records (luckily released). For anyone with bipolar disorder or anyone who has a friend or family member who has struggled with the disease, this book will speak to the heart as well as to the love and concern we have for those in our lives so afflicted. For someone with no experience or knowledge of manic depression, HE WANTED THE MOON will be a very educational experience.Mental illness is one of the most difficult challenges in our society today. Mental illness tears up individuals and families, often causes substance abuse issues and homelessness. Although it can't be made to go away with the snap of a finger, we are all grateful for progress - ANY progress. Reading about Dr. Baird's hospitalization in the United States in the 1940s is like reading about something that might have taken place in the Victorian era. The field of mental health has come a very long way in the 70 years since Perry Baird was treated at Westborough State Hospital. Today, perhaps, someone like Dr. Baird may be treated with Lithium or another prescription drug. There would be better versions of talk therapy, more understanding of the illness. It is hard to speculate whether he would have been able to carry on with his own medical career if he were alive in today's times - or not. But one certainty is that the treatments would be very, very different and his chances of a normal life much greater.Mimi Baird deserves commendations for writing this book about her father. It certainly could not have been easy for her to relive her childhood, but it must have been very difficult for her to read her father's writings and the reports other medical practitioners wrote about him. She is a very brave woman who took on a very heavy task, but - by doing so - she has done an incredible service not only to her father's memory but to all those who suffer or suffered with issues of bipolar.Writing the book must have exhausted her. The only extra a reader might wish for was a longer book. There were so many areas left unexplored: background on her father's family, more on her maternal grandfather who also suffered from the disorder. A genealogy of family from both sides might have added to the book as well as a discussion of current generations and the health issues they do - or do not - face. Still, despite the brevity of the memoir, it is a very important and recommended book.
    • 5/5
      The story of Dr. Perry Baird, a doctor suffering from Manic Depression (aka Bipolar Disorder) and his quest to find a cure before the disease over takes his own life. I won this book from both Goodreads and Librarything and applied to win at both websites because I too live with Bipolar Disorder. I could really sympathize with Dr. Baird and his horrific struggles in mental hospitals. I took notes, highlighted and post-it noted this book to death. I could not believe the "remedies" these doctors tried to inflict on Dr.Baird! The restraint tactics alone, that the state hospital used, only increased the strain on his already compromised mental condition! I thought about listing some of them here to give you an idea of what he experienced, but it makes me sick to even think about it let alone write it down. It was barbaric! The book is taken from Dr. Baird's own diaries on his experiences in the hospitals he resided in for months at a time making it all the more real. He was obviously an educated man, having graduated with top honors from Harvard and his writing is both eloquent and engaging. His daughter, the author of the book spends the last quarter of the book talking about her father's research on the subject of his illness and just how close he was to finding a cure or better yet being cured (or perhaps stabilized is a better word)if only he was born at a different time. Timing is everything, is it not. The book also explores Mimi's (the daughter) relationship, or lack there of, with her father and why she felt compelled to write her father's story. I believe this book is for anyone who lives with Bipolar Disorder, know someone with the illness or works with people with the illness. The book is not as depressing as I may have made it seem. It is also a story of hope and how far we have come with the treatment of mental illness. I will be recommending my local library purchase this book upon publication.