Maps to the Other Side: The Adventures of a Bipolar Cartographer
by Sascha Altman DuBrul Author
Part mad manifesto, part revolutionary love letter, part freight train adventure story—Maps to the Other Side is a self-reflective shattered mirror, a twist on the classic punk rock travel narrative that searches for authenticity and connection in the lives of strangers and the solidarity and limitations of underground community. Beginning at the edge of the internet age, a time when radical zine culture prefigured social networking sites, these timely writings paint an illuminated trail through a complex labyrinth of undocumented migrants, anarchist community organizers, brilliant visionary artists, revolutionary seed savers, punk rock historians, social justice farmers, radical mental health activists, and iconoclastic bridge builders. This book is a document of one person’s odyssey to transform his experiences navigating the psychiatric system by building community in the face of adversity; a set of maps for how rebels and dreamers can survive and thrive in a crazy world.
The author, as Sasha Scatter, was in the band Choking Victim and is a co-founder of The Icarus Project.
by Sascha Altman DuBrul Author
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Comments & Reviews
"Maps to the Other Side works as a not-so-subtle hint that maybe, just maybe it's the whole world around us that has gone mad and not us."
Miha - Bookslut
http://www.bookslut.com/nonfiction/2013_07_020207.php
"dense, sensory attachments and the amazing wording that great authors wield."
Craig Gilbert - Verbicide Magazine
http://www.verbicidemagazine.com/2013/08/20/maps-to-the-other-side-the-adventures-of-a-bipolar-cartographer-sascha-altman-dubrul-book-review/
"...accounts from the authors own life of insane manias and bone-chilling depressions. This could be very helpful to those who deal / suffer with the same issues."
http://profanexistence.com/2013/08/13/maps-to-the-other-side-by-sascha-altman-dubrul-book-review/
"Part memoir, part travel diary, part "how-to," Maps to the Other Side should be all parts inspirational to those charting the same course, informative to those who are not and enlightening to all."
Chris Auman - Reglar Wiglar
http://reglarwiglar.blogspot.com/2013/06/book-review-maps-to-other-side.html
"DuBrul also writes of death, of psychological torment, of life’s shocking tendency to unravel when you least expect it. [...] And it feels like a necessary document of a place where several vital scenes overlapped — even as DuBrul also chronicles the contradictions that overlap unearthed."
Tobias Carroll - Volume 1 Brooklyn
http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2013/04/18/from-the-lower-east-side-by-hard-ways-post-punk-documents-from-rayya-elias-and-sasha-altman-dubrul/
“Maps moved me in the same way that Jack Kerouac’s On the Road did decades ago.”
-Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America
“Genius. These powerful stories of adventure, sorrow, and love will inspire readers to think about their own lives, especially those tinged with madness. Seeing the world through Sascha’s sparkling eyes is a breakthrough—you will fall in love with his mad mad heart.”
-Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education Of An Urban Farmer
“Over a decade ago DuBrul wrote an article on the cover of the SF Bay Guardian that resulted in tens of thousands coming together questioning the psychiatric disease model of mental illness. You will be different after reading DuBrul’s first book. And I cannot wait to share in the paradigm shifting, cultural explosions this debut is destined to elicit!”
-Bonfire Madigan Shive, Performing Artist and Community Activist
“Crack open this book at your peril. For this way lies madness . . . divine madness. Witness the concrete visions and subterranean journeys of a 21st Century vagabond, captured here in plain English.”
-Eric Drooker, author of Flood, Bloodsong, and Illuminated Poems
“Maps to the Other Side is the autobiography not just of one confused, big-hearted kid, but of a whole eager, anxious generation and the era in which they came of age. The detours, the breakdowns, the smashed mirrors.”
-Aaron Cometbus
“Sascha DuBrul is a visionary leader creating powerful new ways to narrate madness. This book shows DuBrul as a moving storyteller, but also an exceptional re-teller of rusty old clinical stories that have become too stiff and mechanical to truly help people navigate their psychic differences. These insights are revolutionary and just in time.”
-Bradley Lewis, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor at New York University and author of Narrative Psychiatry: How Stories Can Shape Clinical Practice.
“This book brings me back to the zines of my youth. Sascha is a great writer and probably an unacknowledged Boddhisatva. While I was seeking nirvana in meditation centers, Sascha was still fully engaged with creating a revolution. As a buddhist teacher and unlicensed psychotherapist, I love that this book challenges the dominant paradigm and my own conditioning around mental health.”
-Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx
“Sascha Altman DuBru’s extraordinary real life experience, cautionary tales, and trips to the outer edges of sanity and back teach us not only about the value of living our own lives well, but also about the value of taking care of our friends’ lives in their most vulnerable moments.”
-Kate Bornstein, author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger and Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws
“DuBrul is a madly gifted storyteller, and I’ve been waiting for this book since the day I first read his early stories about train-hopping and the squat on Avenue C. Whether he is writing about seed-saving, or madness, or the history of punk, his is one of the most passionate and relevant voices of these crazy times. This book will make you feel good to be alive.”
-Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale For the Time Being and My Year of Meats
en espanol:
'En parte manifiesto de la locura, en parte carta de amor revolucionario, en parte cuentos de aventuras en trenes de carga, 'Mapas hacia el otro lado' es un espejo roto autorreflexivo, un giro en la narrativa clásica de viajes del punk rock que busca la autenticidad y la conexión en las vidas de los extraños y la solidaridad y las limitaciones de la comunidad underground. Partiendo dede el principio de la era de Internet, una época en que la cultura zine radical preconfiguraba las redes sociales, estos escritos oportunos trazan un camino iluminado que atravieza un laberinto complejo de migrantes indocumentados, organizadores comunitarios anarquistas, artistas brillantes y visionarios, salvadores radicales de semillas, historiadores del punk rock, agricultores de la justicia social, el movimiento radical de la salud mental y constructores creativos de puentes rebeldes. Este libro documenta la odisea de una persona que atravieza la pesadilla del establecimiento psiquiátrico y el diagnóstico bipolar y cómo utilizó el poder de su comunidad y su pasión por la justicia social para hacer una serie de mapas con el objetivo de construir una vida digna de ser vivida en un mundo loco.'
Can't wait, i own Carnival of Chaos.. so I can't wait to order this