Your wonderful book "Daddy's Girls" is the story of two girls--Allison and Cherie-- growing up in a very dysfunctional family. How did the family's dysfunction affect them?
In any interaction, there are different levels of forces at work. Allison and Cherie are shaped by their dysfunctional family, and at the same time help shape it by their reactions to it. Both feel alienated, but respond to it differently. Allison becomes introverted and insecure at a very early age because of her fear that she will be caught in the crossfire of her parents' volatile relationship. Cherie becomes frustrated and angry and retaliates by giving back more than she gets. As it is in all our lives, the patterns of dysfunction are a perfect fit with the lessons each person in the family has come together with the others to learn.

Your sister struggles with mental illness. Do her battles mirror those of Cherie?
Cherie is an amalgam of traits and situations experienced by my sister, myself, clients I've worked with and other people I've known, heard or read about. (Isn't this what all writers say?) The framework of the story is similar to what went on in our family, and the emotional tone is accurate as I remember it. But all the details are fictional and almost nothing actually happened as I tell it in the book. Many of the Allison parts reflect my own life, since she's in my position in the family. Some of the Ruth and Cherie scenes are mine as well, and some are loosely based on the lives of my sister and mother, but most are completely invented to develop the character or atmosphere. Rather than recounting the factual truth, I've tried to share the insight and compassion gathered from my sister's schizophrenia and my own work as a therapist to offer an interpretation of mental illness which comforts me and which I hope will comfort others as well.

Your take on mental illness is not mainstream. Can you share some of your theories with our readers?
On the surface, the events in Daddy's Girls may seem unremarkable, belying the incipient psychosis, and in a sense they are. There's a fine line between sanity and insanity, a running monologue (or dialogue or however-many) in everyone's mind constantly. The content is mostly automatic stuff accumulated throughout a lifetime of trying to cope with everybody else's stuff. Judging, interpreting, lusting, plotting, regretting, etc., are only interpretations layered on top of pure living and feeling. In that sense, we're all crazy. But we're all sane too. Because at the core, our idiosyncrasies reflect our spiritual mission, and what we create and learn in our unique lives enriches the ground of being. 
     What drives people crazy is a fascinating question. According to the Surgeon General, one in five Americans will suffer from some form of mental illness in their lifetime. And each has a family affected by their illness, like mine was. People with mental illness are stigmatized, mostly because we're all afraid of how easily it might happen to anyone under the right circumstances. 
     Traditional treatment focuses on causes, which aren't certain, and cures, which aren't reliable. It ignores the issue of spiritual purpose, which I feel is the bottom line in all the circumstances of our lives. If we consider that everything that happens to us has the potential to teach us essential lessons in living, then even mental illness can be seen as having dignity. Experience is the teacher, no matter the specifics. Each of us is born with an innate sense of why we're here. Our greatest challenge is to realize the meaning of our lives, and our circumstances are tailor-made to reflect it.
     There are no "good" or "bad" experiences. Difficult situations force us deep enough to touch spirit and learn what it takes to have a fruitful life. When we bring our inner processes to light, we can come to terms with and transform them. In searching for meaning in the tragic, we can tap into deeper levels of perception that transform our vision of life. If we open to our psyches as the ground where spirit and personality meet, we can expand our capacity for love and peace of mind. Mental illness can teach us to deal with our fear and guilt, and to consider life a metaphor for the lessons we need to learn, which can make a difference to us personally and to society as a whole.
     I think of mental illness not as a qualitatively different state of mind, but as a variation in the degree of repression or expression of qualities we all have. It's part of human nature, which contains and reflects all possibilities. "Sanity" and "madness" are like different points on the same continuum, more a sphere than a straight line, around which our psyches bounce almost imperceptibly in every moment. The difference between "us" and "them" is in how well we stay balanced in stressful situations without denying the truth of our emotional experience. That is life's ultimate challenge. Those who "drive us crazy" actually show us how to get sane, in that whatever attracts or upsets us shows us what direction to explore to clarify our mission. 
     The course of family life touches our hearts and strengthens our resilience like nothing else, as we play out issues we understand at a metaphysical level even as they overwhelm and confuse us in our normal operations. Although everybody in a family (or "karass," as Kurt Vonnegut calls our larger group of significant others) participates in the development of the identified patient's personality and illness--it's nobody's fault. The factors that cause insanity are bigger than individual responsibility. The best we can do is be honest and intend to love. 
     If we consider the mentally ill as examples of the wrath of God and avoid them lest it happen to us, we wish they would fade away and not put the questions of sanity in our faces. If we treat them as the canaries in the mine who show us what can happen when we don't or can't manage our experience in a productive way, we can see them as a stimulus to find how to fulfill ourselves and our obligations to one another. It's a sorry society that does not care for its most vulnerable members. 

Daddy's Girls is one of the best 'interior' books I've read since Michael Cunningham's The Hours. How has it been received?
Extremely well. Besides winning ForeWord Magazine's Gold Medal for Fiction, many readers say, as you did, how compelling the story is and how difficult to put down. One of my students told me it was the first book she'd ever read straight through to the end. One of the most interesting and gratifying responses from readers is when they confide in me about mental illness in their own families. In this way, together, we bring it out of the darkness of blame and shame into the light of exploration.

Any plans for a sequel?
I've already started a file. In the sequel, I'd like to have Cherie recover, and relapse, and recover again, and in the process to learn about the nature of sanity and insanity and how to stay balanced and cope with the reality of daily life. I want Allison to discover how to have meaningful relationships, and especially an intimate relationship with a man. That man will be the third viewpoint character, and I'll examine his internal struggle and the interplay between mental illness and creativity. It will be an interesting challenge for me to create a realistic male point of view.

What are you working on now?
I'm working on a book based on my article "TSurviving a Dysfunctional Family: Ten Ways to Make Peace With The Past And Createe A New Future." I've got tons of rough material, and I've polished enough of it to write a book proposal to pitch to publishers. I'm also teaching classes and seeing private clients using on that material, which is very rewarding.

Thanks for stopping by to visit with us. Good luck!
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