The Best Awful There Is
Carrie Fisher
 It is about a bipolar young actress, Suzanne Vale, who married a studio executive, Leland Franklin, who helped her find her "far-flung best self." He then left her, for a man, when their daughter, Honey, was three. Now, three years later, Vale is a successful TV talk show hostess with a six year old daughter, a gay ex-husband, and an aging starlet mother. It is her love for Honey that keeps her going. When Vale, a recovering drug addict, stops taking her medication, she is plunged into a manic episode. She goes on a search for OxyContin in Tijuana with a tattoo artist friend and new house guest, a clinically depressed patient she met at her psycho-pharmacologist's office. A psychotic break lands Vale at Shady Lanes, where she is the "latest loony to hit the bin." Despite her mental illness, Vale still has her wit and ability to find irony in every situation as she struggles back from the brink of insanity. "You entered the hospital broken, found some other like broken patient people, and once in their company, looked down on the other more pathetic inhabitants of the bin you shared, those flying even lower than you and your lo-flung co-conspirators." Pharmacological facts and scenes from group therapy are revealed. Rather than hide the truths of mental disorders, the humor serves to highlight them. A happy ending is contrived for Vale and Honey, a sweet little girl, but a little happiness in the midst of all the craziness is a good thing.