Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me
by Ellen Forney
Gotham. 256 pages, $20.
ELLEN FORNEY is a talented and successful artist who created the long-running I Was Seven in ’75 cartoon strip and illustrated Sherman Alexie’s National Book Award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian. But my own favorite Forney collaboration is a gloriously smutty little book called Lust, in which Forney illustrated a number of kinky personal ads that appeared in The Stranger, a Seattle magazine that also features sex advice columnist Dan Savage.
Forney is both bisexual and bipolar; she’s had to “come out” twice. In her new graphic memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me, she shares the experience of coming to terms with her diagnosis and informing friends and family
But it’s impossible for Forney to function, let alone be brilliant, when she’s depressed. After doing some research, she becomes alarmed by the statistics linking bipolar disorder with suicide. And her therapist is telling her that her condition, if untreated, will only get worse. Faced with this dilemma, Forney set out to find a treatment that would stabilize her out-of-control moods yet allow her to function as an artist. Marbles is the story of how that struggle played itself out.
Forney takes on a lot in this book. She shares the story of her years-long quest for stability, which is undermined both by her own doubts (and dope-smoking) and by the maddening inadequacies and side effects of the different meds prescribed by her therapist. She educates the reader about bipolar disorder and uses both vivid storytelling and pages from the notebooks she kept at the time to get across what being bipolar actually feels like. Finally, she explores the archetype of the “crazy artist.” Along the way, there are entertaining riffs on topics like getting a tattoo, Munch’s The Scream, and the joys of being sex-positive and (safely) promiscuous.
One of Forney’s strengths as an artist has always been her refusal to observe boundaries. She’ll show you anything and everything. An annotated breakdown of the dsm-iv’s “Criteria for a Major Depressive Breakdown” is followed by a four-page depiction of a photo shoot for a porn comic featuring three sexy babes stripping down and having hot sex in a department store fitting room. There’s a desolate drawing of a miserable Forney huddled in a blanket on the couch, then a graphic contemplation of exactly what happens when dogs have sex. Quiet, matter-of-fact therapy sessions are followed by wacky flights of fantasy. Forney also tells us how to masturbate while on Tegretol and what it feels like to be so depressed while interviewing Judy Blume that it’s hard to keep from sobbing.
While the style is freewheeling, the book’s narrative is well thought-out and carefully structured. Everything Forney shows you is there for a reason. The book’s many shifts in topic and tone deliberately parallel her back-and-forth movement between mental health and instability, as well as suggesting how her mind works as she creates, pinballing between erotica and education, facts and fantasy. Forney’s graphics are bold and engaging, and her honesty and wry sense of humor are compelling enough to make you want to stick with her, even as she explores some very dark places. Marbles is a fascinating glimpse into what being bipolar must feel like, as well an exploration of the creative process—and what happens when the two modalities co-exist.
