The Silver Linings Playbook - By Matthew Quick Page 0,41

electroshock therapy, tries to kill herself by taking too many sleeping pills, and is sent to a bad place like the one I was in.

Esther refers to a black man who serves food in her bad place as "the Negro." This makes me think about Danny and how mad the book would make my black friend, especially because Esther was white and Danny says only black people can use controversial racial terms such as "Negro."

At first, even though it is really depressing, this book excites me because it deals with mental health, a topic I am very interested in learning about. Also, I want to see how Esther gets better, how she will eventually find her silver lining and get on with her life. I am sure Nikki assigns this book so that depressed teenage girls will see there's hope if you just hold on long enough.

So I read on.

Esther loses her virginity, hemorrhages during the process, and almost bleeds to death - like Catherine in A Farewell to Arms - and I do wonder why women are always hemorrhaging in American literature. But Esther lives, only to find that her friend Joan has hung herself. Esther attends the funeral, and the book ends just as she steps into a room full of therapists who will decide if Esther is healthy enough to leave her bad place.

We do not get to see what happens to Esther, whether she gets better, and that made me very mad, especially after reading all night.

As the sun begins to shine through my bedroom window, I read the biographical sketch at the back of the book and find out that the whole "novel" is basically the story of Sylvia Plath's life and that the author eventually stuck her head in an oven, killing herself just like Hemingway - only without the gun - which I understand is the implied ending of the book, since everyone knows the novel is really Sylvia Plath's memoir.

I actually rip the book in half and throw the two halves at my bedroom wall.

Basement.

Stomach Master 6000.

Five hundred crunches.

Why would Nikki make teenagers read such a depressing novel?

Weight bench.

Bench press.

One-hundred-thirty-pound reps.

Why do people read books like The Bell Jar?

Why?

Why?

Why?

I'm surprised when Tiffany shows up the next day for our sunset run. I don't know what to say to her, so I say nothing - like usual.

We run.

We run again the next day too, but we don't discuss the comments Tiffany made about my wife.
Chapter 21
An Acceptable Form of Coping

In the cloud room, I pick the black recliner because I am feeling a little depressed. For a few minutes I don't say anything. I am worried that Cliff will send me back to the bad place if I tell him the truth, but I feel so guilty sitting there - and then I'm talking at Cliff, spilling everything in a wild slur of sentences: the big Giants fan, the little Giants fan, my fistfight, the Eagles' loss to the Giants, my father smashing the television screen, his bringing me the sports pages but refusing to speak with me, my dream about Nikki wearing a Giants jersey, Tiffany saying "Fuck Nikki" but still wanting to run with me every day; and then Nikki teaching Sylvia Plath to defenseless teenagers, my ripping The Bell Jar in half, and Sylvia Plath sticking her head in an oven. "An oven?" I say. "Why would anyone stick their head in an oven?"

The release is powerful, and I realize now that somewhere in the middle of my rant I had begun crying. When I finish speaking, I cover my face, because Cliff is my therapist, yes, but he is also a man and an Eagles fan and maybe a friend too.

I start sobbing behind my hands.

All is quiet in the cloud room for a few minutes, and then Cliff finally speaks, saying, "I hate Giants fans. So arrogant, always wanting to talk about L.T., who was nothing but a dirty rotten cokehead. Two Super Bowls, yes, but XXV and XXI were some time ago - more than fifteen years have passed. And we were there just two years ago, right? Even if we did lose."

I am surprised.

I was sure Cliff was going to yell at me for hitting the Giants fan, that he would again threaten to send me back to the bad place, and his bringing up Lawrence Taylor seems so random that I lower my hands and see that Cliff is standing, although he is so