Blog Archives

Website

Cuckoo

What a powerful, disturbing book. The only thing I could wish to be different would be the order in which her stories were told. It might have been a bit more coherent if everything was told in chronological order. Then again, coherency was not the reason for this book, and it’s certainly not how she’s lived her life, so why should the reader get a linear, clear picture? Madison Clell lives with multiple personalities, and these multiple personalities were created after several horribly traumatic things happened to her as a child. She doesn’t shy away from much of anything in here and, like she points out, if you’ve been molested as a child and haven’t been able to deal with it, you should probably avoid this book. It’s sure to trigger some terrible memories, and I just realized that I said “haven’t been able to deal with it”, like I have any idea what somebody would deal with who was molested as a child. Anyway, all the gory details are here. Her discovery of what she was suppressing and all the extra personalities that were inside her as a result. It’s a depressing book, granted, but there’s a whole lot to be said for the fact that she’s still here, and that she seems to have this pretty much under control. This is one of those “transcends the genre” kind of books for me. Not that I’m putting down the genre, as anybody who has seen this site before can attest to, but this is one of those books that I can recommend to anybody, anywhere, who is looking for a fascinating, eye-opening tale of survival. Check her website for ordering info, I’m having trouble finding anything…

Website

Cuckoo #12

Frankly, this doesn’t look like a very appealing comic. A friend of mine read this before me and he couldn’t stop talking about how much he didn’t like it, so I went into it with an automatic negative attitude. I still don’t know what to think after reading it. It’s #12 and I felt like I was jumping on right in the middle. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no kind of continuing story (at least I don’t think there is). It just feels like something she has been doing her whole life, and I guess she kind of has. A back story is needed here. Madison Clell suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder and has (from what I’ve been able to piece together from the comic) suffered from this since she was raped when she was 7. Horrible stuff, I know. She proclaims herself cured on the first page after eight years of therapy, but if that’s the case I hope she did this before she was cured, because it’s bizarre stuff. The closest I could come to describing it would be a kick in the teeth. Page after page of confused, desperate rambling about her life and how things have gone. The stories in here deal with her trying to convince her therapist that she’s not crazy, learning that her parents knew that the people who raped her were deviants before they attacked her, and (I think) the last moments of a young girl’s life. Hard to follow at times, but unmistakably distressing stories. Not the kind of thing to read if you’re in the mood for a laugh, but if you’re up for a challenge and don’t mind reading in minute detail about a ruined life, you’ll get a lot out of this. Her homepage is pretty interesting too, even if it hasn’t been updated in a while. She has quotes from all kinds of odd people, including the real Patch Adams. E-mail her and ask about other issues too. She has a whole volume of work available, that’s for sure…