Local author takes a Joycean turn in his new novella

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When author Josh Greenfield had what he refers to as his second “psychotic” episode while he was a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, it was his father who drove to Ithaca to bring him back to Riverdale. 

“I crashed and burned, and he saw me through as only a great father could have done,” recalled Mr. Greenfield. 

His account of that trip is one of the many memories he documents in his latest novella, “Homeward Bound: A Novella of Idle Speculation,” which is a tribute to his father.

His first novel, “The Obsessive Chronicles,” was a first person account of protagonist Jordan Fineman’s struggles with bipolar disorder, with which he was diagnosed at age 22.

This novella takes a Joycean turn, proffering a stream-of-conscious narration from the same character. Mr. Greenfield previously told The Press that Mr. Fineman is a thinly veiled portrayal of himself. 

He wrote the novella five years ago, when his father was in the hospital with prostate cancer. 

It was Mr. Greenfield’s father who spurred the author’s recovery process, which he described as a 25-year endeavor. He credits his parents for their belief that he would get better. 

“I don’t think anybody thought I was going to get better. I didn’t think I was going to get better,” he said. “To have two people like that in your life is beyond good fortune.”

The novella is set in a fictional Riverdale — referred to as Warren. As the protagonist internally soliloquizes, he sits in a fictional Wave Hill.

Mr. Greenfield has worked toward recovery, progressing from a point at which he was hardly able to function as a result of his obsessive tendencies, to his present state, in which he writes each morning, often about his own experiences with mental illness. 

“There’s something therapeutic to me that someone else could pick up my writing and not feel so alone,” said Mr. Greenfield, who is currently working on his second novel. 

“I like stories about people who are working and getting better,” he said. 

Josh Greenfield, bipolar disorder, Homeward Bound, The Obsessive Chronicles, Maya Rajamani
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