Charles Monroe-Kane is a natural raconteur, and boy, does he have
stories to tell. Born into an eccentric Ohio clan of modern
hunter-gatherers, he grew up hearing voices in his head. Over a dizzying
two decades, he was many things teenage faith healer, world traveler,
smuggler, liberation theologian, ladder-maker, squatter, halibut hanger,
grifter, environmental warrior, and circus manager all the while
wrestling with schizophrenia and self-medication.
From Baby Doc s Haiti to the Czech Velvet Revolution, and from sex,
drugs, and a stabbing to public humiliation by the leader of the free
world, Monroe-Kane burns through his twenties and several bridges of
youthful idealism before finally saying: enough.
In a memoir that blends engaging charm with unflinching frankness,
Monroe-Kane gives his testimony of mental illness, drug abuse, faith,
and love. By the end of Lithium Jesus there may be a voice in your
head, too, saying Do more, be more, live more. And fear less. "