My best friend was a drug addict recovering from his eighth relapse who had lost his job, savings, car, home, wife and family because of addiction. That mindset allowed me to befriend people who were toothless, foul-smelling, crippled, rude or unable to communicate-people I would never associate with before. A mysterious process had freed me from judgment, expectations, worry and fear. Instead of feeling terrified, I felt at peace, and at times, blissful. A normal person in my place would feel frightened and alone, and many of the experiences I described are from a solitary perspective.

In Detour from Normal, I was thrust from normalcy into a life of cold, heartless professionals and the tragically mentally ill.

Joined at the hip in many regards, these novels are nonetheless as different as night and day in a certain respect: one is about being alone and the other is about being together. Detour from Normal is a book that you cant afford to igre, with a message that you will t want to dismiss: tomorrow, next year, or five years from w, this could happen to you.This morning, I pondered the differences between my two novels: Detour from Normal and The Road to Amistad. It is a rich and varied exploration of our humanity written from the unique perspective of someone suffering from mental illness. It is the story of two people deeply in love, but torn apart by fate, an eye-opening introduction to the stigma of mental illness, and a personal run-in with the poor broken souls trapped in psychiatric care. This gut wrenching story is leaving readers shocked at the author's treatment, and appalled by how quickly a medical situation fell through the cracks, sending the patient spiraling uncontrollably into medically induced madness. What should have been an ordinary surgical procedure changed that, propelling him into a high security psychiatric ward where psychiatrists branded him a danger to himself and others. Such was the experience of Ken Dickson, a beloved husband and father and respected engineer, with history of mental illness. Despite access to the greatest healthcare in the world, U.S citizens are t immune to medical horror stories.

Detour from normal by ken dickson