Blood Orange Night

Brain on Fire meets High Achiever in this page-turner memoir chronicling a womans accidental descent into prescription benzodiazepine dependenceand the life-threatening impacts of long-term usethat chills to the bone (Nylon). As Melissa Bond raises her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son, she suffers from unbearable insomnia, sleeping an hour or less each night. She loses her job as a journalist (a casualty of the 2008 recession), and her relationship with her husband grows distant. Her doctor casually prescribes benzodiazepinesa family of drugs that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Ativanand increases her dosage regularly. Following her doctors orders, Melissa takes the pills night after night until her body begins to shut down. Only when she collapses while holding her daughter does Melissa learn that her doctorlike so many othershas over-prescribed the medication and quitting cold turkey could lead to psychosis or fatal seizures. Benzodiazepine addiction is not well studied, and few experts know how to help Melissa as she begins the months-long process of tapering off the pills without suffering debilitating, potentially deadly consequences. Each page thrums with the heartbeat of Melissas strugglehow many hours has she slept? How many weeks old are her babies? How many milligrams has she taken? Her propulsive writing crescendos to a fever pitch as she fights for her health and her ability to care for her children. Propulsive, poetic (Shelf Awareness), and immersive, this vivid chronicle of suffering (Kirkus Reviews) and redemption shines a light on the prescription benzodiazepine epidemic as it reaches a crisis point in this country.