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Like Crazy

Life with My Mother and Her Invisible Friends

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About this listen

 “Exquisite. Full of wry humor, tenderness, and compassion.” —Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author

A hilarious and heartbreaking memoir about a mother and son’s outlandish odyssey of self-discovery, and the rag-tag community that rallied to help them when they needed it most.

Dan Mathews knew that his witty, bawdy seventy-eight year-old mother, Perry, was unable to maintain her fierce independence—so he flew her across the country to Virginia to live with him in an 1870 townhouse badly in need of repairs. But to Dan, a screwdriver is a cocktail not a tool, and he was soon overwhelmed with two fixer-uppers: the house and his mother.

Unbowed, Dan and Perry built a rollicking life together fueled by costume parties, road trips, and an unshakeable sense of humor as they faced down hurricanes, blizzards, and Perry’s steady decline. They got by with the help of an ever-expanding circle of sidekicks—Dan’s boyfriends (past and present), ex-cons, sailors, strippers, deaf hillbillies, evangelicals, and grumpy cats—while flipping the parent-child relationship on its head.

But it wasn’t until a kicking-and-screaming trip to the emergency room that Dan discovered the cause of his mother’s unpredictable, often caustic behavior: undiagnosed schizophrenia.

Irreverent and emotionally powerful, Like Crazy is a “journey to self-acceptance and ultimately finding love” (Alan Cumming) and shows the remarkable growth that takes place when a wild child settles down to care for the wild woman who raised him. Aging Parents Biographies & Memoirs Mental Health Parenting & Families Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Schizophrenia & Psychotic Disorders Health Memoir Witty Funny

Critic reviews

"Author Dan Mathews narrates this entertaining memoir about caring for his elderly mother in a raggedy old Virgina house. His voice is full of quiet amusement as he describes his larger-than-life mom and the ups and downs of their spontaneous costume parties, vegan feasts, and home improvement mishaps. Mathews's narration is mostly fun and breezy, but his voice fills with emotion when he speaks about his mother's undiagnosed schizophrenia and their challenging visits to the hospital. . . . his lively, heartfelt performance adds a lot of depth to this lighthearted but ultimately moving audiobook about a complicated mother-son relationship."
All stars
Most relevant
I read this after reading the original book Dan Mathews wrote ‘Comitted’ after becoming vegan. There are so many militant, aggressive unpleasant vegans that even though I was vegetarian since the age of 12, I was put off veganism. Reading Committed showed me a different side to veganism one with intelligence, creativity and humour. ‘Like Crazy’ is not a book for vegans, its a book for people who care, about family, challenges, growing old, life, going against the grain, being different, humanity, humility, and of course there is an element of veganism and a love for animals, but really this book is more an uplifting look into an unconventional family life and growing old in a unique, caring and kind way. For every kind of animal 😉

Absolutely Brilliant Funny, Sad, Yet Uplifting

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