72 Hour Hold - by Bebe Moore Campbell (Paperback)

About the Book

Campbell draws on the powerful emotions of her own experience and African-American roots in this story of a mother who struggles to save her 18-year-old daughter from the devastating consequences of mental illness by forcing her to deal with her bipolar disorder.

Book Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "A tightly woven, well-written story about mothers and daughters, highs and lows, ex-husbands and boyfriends.... Universally touching." --San Francisco Chronicle

Trina is eighteen and suffers from bi-polar disorder, making her paranoid, wild, and violent. Frightened by her own child, Keri searches for help, quickly learning that the mental health community can only offer her a seventy-two hour hold. After these three days Trina is off on her own again.

Fed up with the bureaucracy and determined to save her daughter by any means necessary, Keri signs on for an illegal intervention known as The Program, a group of radicals who eschew the psychiatric system and model themselves after the Underground Railroad. In the upheaval that follows, she is forced to confront a past that refuses to stay buried, even as she battles to secure a future for her child.

Review Quotes

"Bebe Moore Campbell shatters our abstract notions about mental illness. . . . [She] is a writer at the top of her form as a storyteller, culture keeper and astute social critic." -Los Angeles Times"A tightly woven, well-written story about mothers and daughters, highs and lows, ex-husbands and boyfriends, and how a 'perfect' life can be completely altered by something entirely beyond our control. . . . Universally touching." -San Francisco Chronicle"Stark, incisive and often harrowing, 72 Hour Hold wrenches open the closet door behind which mental illness has been hidden in communities of color. It's no small task, but Campbell handles it with characteristic verve and aplomb." -The Baltimore Sun"I am grateful for Bebe Moore Campbell. . . . Campbell fearlessly unveils the pain of loss and the ecstasy of love. Add to that courage, and the graceful ability to write very, very well." -Maya Angelou

About the Author

Bebe Moore Campbell was the author of several New York Times bestsellers: Brothers and Sisters, Singing in the Comeback Choir, What You Owe Me, which was also a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001, and 72 Hour Hold. Her other works include the novel Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and the winner of the NAACP Image Award for literature. Bebe Moore Campbell died in 2006.

www.bebemoorecampbell.com