Daniel Smith's "memoir of anxiety," Monkey Mind, begins with a section on "why I am qualified to write this book," describing his walk to a therapist's office--a mental flagellation that ends with the therapist asking if he can tape their session, presumably as a case study of just how bad anxiety can become.
Smith then explores what he believes may be the cause of his anxiety: the loss of his virginity involving a dysfunctional coworker and an unfortunate threesome. The images are startling and repugnant, but the reader, thoroughly disarmed by the humor in the first section, is reassured that even during Smith's darkest moments, redemption is possible.
After the first chapter, the memoir is loosely chronological, shifting from hilarious moments from Smith's childhood with his psychotherapist mother ("It was not unusual, when I was young, for a procedure as routine and noninvasive as a strep culture to set me off like a pig in a barn fire") to his present hard-earned success as a writer, husband and father who has learned to live with anxiety as an amusing, if not entirely welcome houseguest. "If this all sounds melodramatic," he writes, "well that, too, isn't a bad metaphor for anxiety--as a kind of drama queen of the mind."
Beyond the entertaining vignettes, Monkey Mind is a serious exploration of an affliction that affects most people to a certain extent and provides helpful insights as well as the reassurance that even the most neurotic are in good company. --Kristen Galles from Book Club Classics