Marya Hornbacher tells her story through scenes of astonishing visceral and emotional power. She takes us inside her own desperate attempts to counteract violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation. How Hornbacher fights her way up from a madness that all but destroys her, and what it is like to live in a difficult and sometimes beautiful life and marriage -- where bipolar always beckons -- is at the center of this brave and heart-stopping memoir.

With a trio of compelling "cold case" mysteries at its core; with its wonderfully sympathetic and complex private detective hero; with its host of instantly endearing, lovably flawed characters; and with its effortlessly beautiful and intelligent prose, Case Histories is Kate Atkinson's breakout book - the most accomplished, most compulsively readable novel yet from a writer of the first rank.