Sign-In
Cart
To An Insane Degree
Paperback
ArtistsBiographies GeneralGeneral Poetry
Publisher Price: $15.99
ISBN13: 9781736182307
Publisher: Gabriel Diamond
Published: Dec 11 2020
Pages: 254
Weight: 0.83
Height: 0.58 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
To An Insane Degree is a poetic memoir spanning the life of artist, Sandy Diamond. Sandy's memoir takes us from her childhood- where she worked in her father's delicatessen side-by-side with Holocaust survivors - to art school in New York, rubbing shoulders with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Her story offers a glimpse into the madness she faced while battling manic depression in mental institutions, and the courage it took to rebuild her life after an accident that broke her back led to a crippling deformity. Sandy's journey carries us through a series of love affairs with men who helped her through her recovery from both shock treatment and six months in a body cast, the sixties, when she moved to California to become the first single deliberate mother in the universe, into her final days as the artist she had always prayed to become. This surprisingly hilarious testament to art and passion is a celebration of Sandy's extraordinary life and shows us what's possible when we transcend the limitations of the body, buck societal conventions, and befriend the demons of madness.
This offers a rare glimpse into the life of a visionary female artist's life from the New York jazz, Beatnik streets of the 1950's to California in the 1960's through the trials and joys of raising a son as a disabled single mother in the 1970's and 80's.
Born in 1936 to Elizabeth and Samuel Diamond in Gates Mills, Ohio, Sandy was passionate about words and images from infancy. Her mother told her she was scribbling on her crib sheet as soon as she was strong enough to hold anything that made a mark.
In New York Sandy ran with Jack Kerouac (He sainted me by kissing my braid), Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and the swashbuckling poet Peter Orlovksy. Sandy writes that Orlovsky was her lover as well as Ginsberg's; and, when she asked Orlovsky if he loved girls or boys, he replied, I'm crazy for the girls, but I love Allen!
New York offered Sandy the intoxication of living and breathing her art, but she also suffered severe manic-depressive episodes. A breakdown at 22 precipitated three trips to mental institutions. Born with curvature of the spine (my mother always told me to sit up straight!), the scoliosis was exacerbated by a fall from a roof. One afternoon, descending onto two stacked garbage cans after rooftop sunbathing (in a red-and-white laced bikini, she was quick to point out), one can tipped and Sandy toppled. After months in a body cast, her broken back healed, but her spine continued to curve.
Sandy reared her son Gabriel in Berkeley and Oakland, encouraging his own artistic passions of dance, theater and filmmaking.
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII
Warnicke, Retha M.
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man
Lame Deer, Chief Archie Fire
Erdoes, Richard
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover