{"product_id":"9781847671738","title":"Relative Stranger: Piecing Together a Life Plagued by Madness","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Smart, affecting, and self-critically probing: a balm for anyone who has lost a loved one long before death.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Loudon’s book is a moving and loving testament to a messy, complicated life. A-“—\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eRelative Stranger\u003c\/i\u003e is the powerful, uncompromising memoir of Mary Loudon’s search to understand the facts about the deeply troubling final years of her dead sister, Catherine. Mary, the youngest in a happy, upper-middle-class London family, had not seen Catherine for what would be the last twelve years of Catherine’s life. After discovering that Catherine had been “inhabiting the identity” of a man called Stevie, Mary plunges into a postmortem investigation, interviewing doctors, nurses, social-services representatives, nuns, café owners, grocers, and ministers who knew Catherine. Loudon paints a portrait that lays bare the pain of schizophrenia as well as its vexing complexities. In the vein of Jeanette Walls’s best-selling memoir, \u003ci\u003eThe Glass Castle\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRelative Stranger\u003c\/i\u003e is an honest account of how schizophrenia affected a promising young life while exploring the assumptions people make about mental illness and what it means to love, to lose, to die, and, above all, to belong.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Canongate Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47050935042288,"sku":"9781847671738","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781847671738_p0.jpg?v=1763748431","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781847671738","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}