Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin (35 page)

I’m not saying that eating right and exercising, nurturing your heart and challenging your brain, will save you. It won’t. There is no saving, of course. You never “arrive.” You move. You get on with it. That’s the prescription.

In the end, and after a long, long trip, there’s only one thing I can tell you about happiness, about well-being, as I understand it. You want to be happy? You want to be well? Then put your boots on.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my agent, Eric Simonoff, for being, as usual, so much more than an agent; my editors, Molly Stern and Wendy Wolf, for their unflagging support, guidance and editorial acumen; Viking president, Clare Ferraro, who has been the kindest of fostering mothers; my publicists Jump Coleburn and Ann Day, who make it all turn out beautifully; and my friend and cohort Laura Tisdel, who also just happens to work at Viking. I owe my life, body, and soul to my beloved friend Claire Berlinski, who has done more for me over the years than anyone could or should ever have been expected to. I owe this and a whole hell of a lot more than I can ever repay to Lisa McNulty. In addition I would like to thank Bruce Nichols, Adam Bellow, and by no means last or remotely least, my family: Alex, Ted, Mom, Dad, and Kristen.