Going Crackers

 

An old book I finally sent to a friend. From 1977. I think there was even a movie made. A look back at the 70's and those who ended up in the psych ward.

"The Cracker Factory" is the story of Cassie, a bored young housewife from Cleveland's middle-class suburbs in the 1970s. She has a critical, controlling mom; a husband who is stable but drives her nuts by treating her like a child and making decisions without her input; a couple of kids; oh, and don't forget, a drinking problem. She tries having an affair, which is a total bust, and she winds up in the mental ward at holiday time. You may be asking yourself how this could possibly be funny, unless it's in some hackneyed old pre-"Days of Wine and Roses" era when getting falling-down-drunk was still uproarious. But Cassie is very human, and likable, and funny. So funny, in fact, that you wonder why in heck she's piddling away her time drinking and cleaning house for husband Charlie when she could be out becoming the next Erma Bombeck or Rosanne Barr. I still laugh out loud at the scene where Cassie jogs after her lover on a deserted beach, but instead of it being romantic, she's "spitless with thirst and dying to pee." The description of holiday time in the mental ward filled with other depressed and disturbed folks is full of pathos, quintessentially Cleveland and yes, ruefully funny.- An Amazon Review.

I feel certian my friend can relate. She deals with so many at work and the lowest paid there. Her aging parents are driving her insane. She had a heart attack recently and didn't even know it. True, she's in to heavily medicating herself with ganja and is possibly the biggest sexpot at the hospital where she finds time for maitaince men in the bathrooms. Yes, she is quite a character.