Electroboy
 Andy Behrman
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Random House
  ISBN: 0375503587


A Memoir of Mania. For most of his life Andy has hid his raging mania under a larger -- than -- life personality until he turned to art forgery. Then he became the subject of a New York scandal, jail & house arrest until, finally, he opts for electroconvulsive therapy.

Reviewing a book about the mental illness called manic/depression written by a bipolar person, is unlike anything I've ever read! At first I surmised that Random House's editors had been on a sabbatical while the manuscript went through the mill to the presses, & then I realized what I was reading & the effort it took for this young man to get it all on paper!

Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania is a masterpiece -- no forgery here! As a fan of The Rocky Horror Show, I was tickled that Andy Behrman quotes Dr. Scott about being strong & hanging on -- little did I know!

When I turned the page & read the author's “To Do List” for January 6, 1991, I was amused because I too am a list-maker, especially during those intense years of early motherhood. Andy's list, however, is monumental & a sign of things to come!

There are not enough exclamation marks in any language to alert you, the moderately sane Reader, to the fast-forward motion of the ride ahead. When you start Electroboy, I guarantee you will not, during the time it takes you to read it, see your life in the same way, & perhaps, never the same way again!

Were I to take a quote from Andy's book, I would have to type in an entire paragraph & each of Andy's paragraphs covers a vast & fascinating array of thoughts. Only the reading of a dozen pages in the largest dictionary I own, all at one sitting, has ever given me quite the same mental hike!

Andy Behrman, inspite of his mental illness, has written an engaging & exhausting, hilarious & horrifying memoir of where he came from, how it all started & what happened for all of his life until...

Until, so out of control, he moves from authentic into full throttle forgery, both in the field of his art dealing & his life, as the disease overwhelms him.

Electroboy is tragic -- because you have to watch a man's mind destroy its host & heroic because you have to watch a man take a death-defying leap of faith & allow his mind to be electrocuted -- sort of. For the most part, Andy Behrman is coherent & articulate -- until you think about what he has written & then you get a whiff of seething synapses & the taste of burnt brain cells. To say Andy lived on the edge is to opine that the lip of the Grand Canyon is really the doorway to hell. To say that Andy's life was hellish, is to opine that Hieronymus Bosch's paintings are beautiful.

Read Electroboy if you dare! You will find yourself holding your breath & then shrieking with relief tinged with laughter. On & on he goes, round & round he swirls on highs so high he's looking down at the sky & then, in a blink, he's so at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, he can't see daylight.

Extraordinary, unique & a thought-provoking, enjoyable read! I'm still catching my breath!

You have something to say to Andy? Contact him on his website: www.electroboy.com
(03/17/02)

Rebecca