Over the course of the following weekend, I read the entire story of Marya's ten-year struggle with anorexia and bulimia. She had recently read the book herself, and was keen for me to do the same, as she believed it might help me to understand the eating disorder that had already plagued her for more than 15 years. It was my baby sister, Seonaid, who introduced me to the novel, back in 2007. But having reminded myself that I read the book long before Marya and I became friends, and that it meant a great to me even before we got to know one another, I think I can justify writing a few words here. I've put off reviewing this book for some time on account of the fact Marya's both a friend and the editor of my novel, Hunger for Life. Eliot, and their miniature dachsunds Milton and Dante. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband Jeff, their cats Shakespeare and T.S. The recipient of a host of awards for journalism and a Pulitzer Prize nominee, Marya has lectured at universities around the country, taught writing and literature, and published in academic and literary journals since 1992. It is already being called "the most visceral, important book on mental illness to be published in years." It will be published in April of 2008. Marya's new memoir Madness: A Life (Houghton Mifflin) is an intense, beautifully written book about the difficulties, and promise, of living with mental illness. Her second book, the acclaimed novel The Center of Winter (HarperCollins, 2005) has been called "masterful," "gorgeous writing," "a stunning acheivement of storytelling," "delicious," and "compulsive reading." Told in three voices, by six-year-old Kate, her mentally ill brother Esau, and their mother Claire, The Center of Winter is the story of a family recovering from a father's suicide in the spare, wintry Minnesota north, a story of struggle, transformation, and hope.
What started as a crazy idea suggested by a writer friend became the classic book that has been published in fourteen languages, is taught in universities and writing programs all over the world, and has, according to the thousands of letters Marya has received over the years, changed lives. Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.), in 1998, when she was twenty-three.
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