A Quiet Kind of Crazy

Twenty-four-year-old Kara West is drunk, and the pile of sleeping pills she swallowed is only pulling her down into the fog that much faster. As her thoughts blur, she dreams of her life the way it had been: the simple joy of her new apartment, learning to love the smells and sights of living in the city, the friendships formed... the quiet echo of people walking by, just out of reach, as her faces scratches against the rough brick. The booze, the pills- --it's not enough to make her forget the heat of his breath as he whispered in her ear; it's not enough to keep her from still remembering the feeling of his knee in her back.

Throughout this psychological fiction, Kara struggles with the shame of her emotions; of seeing herself as weak and afraid. Slipping in and out of consciousness, Kara relives her past. We follow her to the one fateful night all her lies, her attempts at hiding the liquor and pills, collapse. In what becomes a desperate moment, Kara runs. No longer can she pretend. She now has no choice but to face the demons she had used to cope, the demons she thought she had hidden so well.

A Quiet Kind of Crazy begs the question of just how dangerous living a lie can be. As a society, we are beginning to see and talk about the emotional cost of hiding who we are; that may be reflected in how we define ourselves, what we have done, or what has been done to us. In Kara's case, it provides the reader an insight into the torture that living with fear, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress can create. Kara's story not only appeals to those who are familiar with the struggle of mental anguish; but to those who are left behind wondering what happened to the person they love.