The Outsider
A Journey Into My Father's Struggle with Madness
Excerpt
The Transient
I still remember the shock I felt the first time I saw the transient. It was
December 1, 1978, the day before my ninth birthday. It was snowing. My father
and I were on our annual excursion to a camera store on the West Side of
Manhattan that sold Super 8 movies. Each year at my birthday party, after lunch
and cake, my father would set up the S-8 movie projector and portable screen in
the cramped quarters of his wood-paneled office. With the help of six or seven
kids, darkness, and a little imagination, my father's office acquired the magic
of an old movie palace. In one afternoon we would see Charlie Chaplin in The
Circus, Bela Lugosi in Dracula, and Boris Karloff and Vincent Price
battling in The Raven—all conveniently shortened to fit the S-8 format,
which allowed us to get in a game of kickball before it got too dark. The last
movie my father threaded through the projector was always the new addition to
the collection.
My father and I spen ... read full excerpt from Outsider ebook
