Prozac Highway

by Persimmon Blackbridge

Book Overview

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award

"When your car is spinning out of control heading for the guard rail, you have all the time in the world."

Losing her nerve and burning out fast, hardcore lesbian performance artist Jam has trouble coping with the outside world. Her best friend and former lover, Roz thinks Jam's losing it, big time. Her doctor thinks Prozac is the answer.

Meanwhile, Jam finds love, comfort and support...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 071453059X
• ISBN13: 9780714530598
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers
• Length: 139 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

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First published in 1997, Prozac Highway encapsulates a particular shift in "subcultures" ~ Lesbian shock theatre into androgynous cyberspace, all the while with a wild MH boilerplate. Very '97, and a page-turner. Of course, coming outta Northampton MA during the 90's, I compared the fiction with the fact and concluded this writer knows her stuff cold. A twisted sentimental peregrination for me, for sure. Oh, yeh, my last visit there, just last summer, I saw Judy and checked out Genny Burnett's latest art opening upstairs at Thornes; nice closure to sweet dark days.

Down to earth, surprising, meaningful

This book is an inspiration. Blackbridge keeps us grounded while taking us into a series of what-the-hell-is-this worlds: a lesbian cleaning lady performance artist living in Vancouver, B.C.? Then she brings in the mental-illness aspect, and in the hands of a less skilled writer this could become some sort of weighty, dull treatise. But not Blackbridge. This story remains true and funny until the very end. Highly, highly recommended.

Great book, so why can't she end it?

I loved this book. It wasn't too light or too dark - didn't exaggerate anything. Everything was completely told how it is as far as mental illness goes... and medication as well.I also loved Jam's character... a fortysomething "hardcore lesbian performance artist" who spends all her free time online, except for when her friend Roz forces her to go to the doctor. She makes up dialogue and relationships for characters in the RPG games she downloads and plays and talks to the ashes... that she cleans for's lover (and they talk back).I laughed and I cried and read it fairly quickly, just because I couldn't put it down.However, when it ended, I had no closure. There are some books that are succesful in leaving the endings open, and this is not one of them. There were too many loose ends that hadn't even started tying themselves up.I'm gonna look for more books by this author though. She has amazing talent and maybe something else she wrote has an ending :)

A Book That Captures The Reality of Mental Illness

This book captures what it is to be mentally ill. It is told from the first person viewpoint of a woman who is descending into irrationality. It is painfully accurate in the subtle ways that the irrationality of a mental illness can take over the psyche of an individual. It is more than a self-help or a true experience book though. It is true work of art that captures the reality of the sufferer of mental illness. I have seen it written that the sufferes of mental illness have just a differenr way of looking at reality and that this way may be in its own way more accurate than the normal population. This book to its merit shows the falsity of this idea.

If you want to know what it's like, read this book.

I devoured it in an evening, and it has stayed with me for months. It survived a re-read admirably.The story transports the reader into the chaos that really is madness. A soft and encroaching madness that consumes the reader as it devours Jam, the main character. Oh yeah, Jam has an "edge"... an edge that cuts through the haze of internal disequilibrium and external expectations. She's complex, she's interesting, and she's accessible.The mingling of the "real world" and Internet paths are brilliant. Any member of an Internet forum has been there, and it's nice to see it translated so adeptly into one of those paper thingees -- oh yeah, a book.