Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8950092
EAN num: 9780375503580
ISBN number: 0375503587
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 304
Printing Date: February 19, 2002
Publishing house: Random House
Release Date: February 19, 2002
Sale Popularity Level: 794902
Studio: Random House
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Electroboy is an emotionally frenzied memoir that reveals with kaleidoscopic intensity the terrifying world of manic depression. For years Andy Behrman hid his raging mania behind a larger-than-life personality. He sought a high wherever he could find one and changed jobs the way some people change outfits: filmmaker, PR agent, art dealer, stripper-whatever made him feel like a cartoon character, invincible and bright. Misdiagnosed by psychiatrists and psychotherapists for years, his condition exacted a terrible price: out-of-control euphoric highs and tornadolike rages of depression that put his life in jeopardy.
Ignoring his crescendoing illness, Behrman struggled to keep up appearances, clinging to the golden-boy image he had cultivated in his youth. But when he turned to art forgery, he found himself the subject of a scandal lapped up by the New York media, then incarcerated, then under house arrest. And for the very first time the golden boy didn’t have a ready escape hatch from his unraveling life. Ingesting handfuls of antidepressants and tranquilizers and feeling his mind lose traction, he opted for the last resort: electroshock therapy.
At once hilarious and harrowing, Electroboy paints a mesmerizing portrait of a man held hostage by his in-satiable desire to consume. Along the way, it shows us the New York that never sleeps: a world of strip clubs, after-hours dives, and twenty-four-hour coffee shops, whose cheap seductions offer comfort to the city’s lonely souls. This unforgettable memoir is a unique contribution to the literature of mental illness and introduces a writer whose energy may well keep you up all night.
Amazon.com:
Put sex, drugs, art forgeries, and manic depression into a blender, run it at top speed for 10 minutes, and out pops Electroboy, Andy Behrman's high-octane autobiography. The story begins as an exhilarating view into the manic's world, with spontaneous flights to Tokyo, sketchy East Village bars, and a nonstop inner dialogue that makes your pulse race just to keep up. The remainder of the book slows down considerably, starting with Behrman's New Jersey childhood and winding through a successful education, a rapid accumulation of debts, a forged painting scam that lands him in prison, and finally a series of electroshock treatments that allow him to find some balance in life at last.
Between titillating tales of stripping for extra cash and excessive drug use, Behrman charts his experiences with therapists and a wide variety of prescription medications. No clear picture is presented of his attempts at counseling; there is much skipping around between therapists, from whom he manages to hide the extent of his difficulties. In his very first experience with Prozac, he doubles his original dose 'to speed up' and later fires his psychiatrist for 'medicating him like an absolute lunatic.' This tale alone makes his doctors come across as more sympathetic characters than Behrman might have intended. Like many confessional memoirs, Electroboy is a blunt tale that relies heavily on the shock value of his über-yuppie behavior, which ends up detracting from the potentially fascinating story of his illness. --Jill Lightner
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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As someone that does not suffer from BiPolar Disorder, I was hoping to gain some insight into the mind of someone that suffers from this illness. I never felt that from this book, I could not understand how his compulsive actions actually stemmed from his illness. He seemed to me to be suffering from a huge case of narcissism.
Rated by buyers 
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I really hate to rate any book with only one star. I give the author credit for writing a book that got published. Otherwise, I couldn't finish this one. I bought it largely due to the fact that the author was present at a DBSAlliance conference outside Chicago that I also attended, and I wanted to show support to another person with Bipolar...there the loyalty ends.
This was, to me, almost unreadable. I felt it was too narcissistic, too poorly written, too...well, manic. I mean, I really appreciate reading books by people who focus on themselves when they have a lucid story to relate, but this book was painfully lacking in any lucidity. It is always uncomfortable to me to read or listen to someone who is in the throes of mania - after a certain point you just want to leave to room. Too many words with nothing to say but aren't I interesting, grand, wildly amusing, and don't I live the life. Well, no, you aren't and you don't. A real turn-off. I had absolutely no sympathy, empathy, or ability to relate to this person, and no time to waste finishing this ode to Andy. I mean, in the big scheme of things, who cares?
Rated by buyers 
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The best book on manic depressive episodes with light towards the end of the tunnel. If you or a close relative or friend is in the throes of this terrible predicament, almost a life sentence of sorts, you should read this book. Its not an undertone of pessimism or another will-bring-tears type of book, rather a delightfully readable surmise of manic episodes. The speed of narration speeds up in the beginning with the pace of racing thoughts and then slows down with the downs of depression. A not so thrilling roller coaster ride for the protagonist, but for you, maybe, or even entertaining if you like reading books on psychology. This is not a book about the disease per-se or even electricity or any neurological disorder associated with the term, but a memoir of struggle, perhaps an active and electrical experience of the manic episodes, and the title does justice. The electro-convulsive therapy blends in the title towards the end, although to no avail, another modern snake oil for the refractive nature of the beast. Read it and you will like it, and if you are worried, it is not heavy to lift with hand or mind.
Rated by buyers -
I work with the mentally ill and have a particularly difficult client who has multiple mental illness diagnoses and a personality disorder. In my opinion, his bipolar diagnosis is the one that has wreaked the most havoc in his life and in the lives of his caregivers and loved ones. Prior to reading Electroboy, I wrote to the Andy, the author, who answered immediately, saying he was very busy, but would write more in a few days, when he was back home. He wrote again, as he said he would and though he was not able to provide a lot of help or insight, he offered what he could, in the way of advice. I much appreciated the author taking time to respond to me. I bought and read Andy's book later (mostly out of appreciation for his help, as the reviews had not been great). After all this, I'm sorry to say that my review of the book is "just OK". It is sort of a diary of events, without much insight into the mind of a bi-polar. In fairness to Andy, he may just not realize how very difficult it is for the average reader, who is not bipolar, to understand the workings of the mind, or the rationalizations of someone who is bipolar.
Rated by buyers -
A previous reviewer (El Lagarto) hit the nail almost exactly except, to me, the narcissism here fails to dazzle. While the the author's prose style does uncannily mimic his condition (bipolar disorder, here for some reason referred to by its prior designation of manic depression, making each specific reference to it seem like a literary device), that's part of the problem, really. The helter skelter style allows for no real reflection, and it's the literary equivalent of a sore throat--irritating and hard to swallow in places, especially, for one example, when Behrman relates very specifically his dreams, which blend way too seamlessly with the context of his life at given points, making their content seem invented.
While parts are very affecting--particulary the author's need to apologize for his condition to his parents, and his shame at having failed them--on the whole, this is more of a celebration of a meaningless lifestyle than it is an honest look at a disease. The author seems almost to want to be envied. Behrman is non-self-judgemental to the degree that he cannot even see his own complicity in his condition--the boozing and drugging (ad nauseum, page after page after page, in excruciating detail) can exacerbate greatly the effects of the disease yet it is not until nearly the book's last pages that he sees fit to mention the fact after one of his l-o-n-g line of therapists points it out to him.
That long line of psychologists and psychiatrists points up another fact: Behrman was lucky indeed to be able to afford top-notch healthcare, and it is in part because he takes that for granted that, perhaps, he kept on (and on, and ON) with the self-treatment (liquor, drugs, sex) even while he was receiving what on the whole sounds like excellent treatment--spoiled and rich, he gains no real rapport with a general audience by taking such things for granted and continuing, in his breezy manner (the book IS well-written in spite of its wrongheaded tone and over-aggressive, snarky style, and interesting--I enjoyed the tour of the art world and descriptions of its denizens well enough), to recount his art sales, drug deals, liquor intake, and sexual conquests.
His conviction for having sold at great profit a number of forged Kostabi paintings is dealt with as if he thinks he did nothing wrong except get caught. True, Kostabi's work was itself manufactured, but this does not mitigate for a minute Behrman's own crime--knowingly defrauding buyers and profiting greatly by doing so. We're expected to applaud his dishonesty and to feel fortunate to accompany him abroad while he does his deals; the reader is expected to nod knowingly when a rental car, paid for by a canceled credit card, is blithely left in airport parking because "someone will find it." That's nudge-wink tosh. I came to this book with an open mind and left it with one accordingly padlocked--the great post-punk band Magazine's line "My mind ain't so open / That anything can crawl right in" fits this book to a 'T.'
Being bipolar myself and having struggled mightily with the condition--albeit on a lower-middle-class income sans health insurance--of course I feel for Behrman and his struggles, but his off-putting prose style and unreflective take on the disease in question, PARTICULARLY his failure to acknowledge any blame for the massive exacerbation of his condition via the overwhelming (and preening) accounts of his wretched excesses, renders this book as glib and thus almost as meaningless as the author's lifestyle--not to mention his lack of gratitude for being to the manor born and thus being able to afford top treatment. One does hope he continues this treatment because, based on his prose style and the book's false message, he's far from out of the dark shadow of his disease.
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