Remembering Garrett: One Family's Battle with a Child's Depression

Senator Gordon Smith's first book tenderly describes his son Garrett's struggle with bipolar disorder and his final, desperate decision to take his own life. With moments of great honesty and pathos, Smith alternates between feelings of guilt over his long absences and the belief that Garrett's struggles were part of God's design. However, Smith's narrative includes so much back story (about his own parents, his work in the frozen foods industry and his eventual election to public office) that Garrett's story sometimes gets lost. The voices of Garrett's mother and sister are not heard until the epilogue, and those friends and family who are represented require more fleshing out. Smith's description of his mother-""a saint""-is indicative of a well-meaning but ill-advised reluctance to consider the flaws and contradictions that make his subjects human. Shoehorned bipartisan rhetoric (""pain and loss do not register as Republican or Democrat"") serves to further distance Smith from the topic at hand. Other than the Senator's job title, there is not much to make this book stand out in a sadly overpopulated genre that includes books like Patty Duke's A Brilliant Madness and Kathleeen Finneran's lyrical memoir, The Tender Land.