Silver Water

"Silver Water" by Amy Bloom was the first story I've read in a while which has a character who is mentally unstable.That was the first thing that pulled me in, starting with the line "she had her first psychotic break when she was fifteen". The second paragraph subtly build up to that revelation with lines like "that's the story I told to all her therapists..I wanted them to know her, that what they saw was not all their was to see." and "To me, Rose...was perfect." What I like is how Rose is not depicted as having no individuality but as just a set of symptoms,like mentally unstable people normally are.  It is clear that she a sense of humor and wit to her and even though living with her is hard for her family, it can also be enjoyable and funny at times, like with the therapists,which is the reality of living with a person with a mental illness.  Tension is maintained in a large sense throughout the story starting with Rose's first psychotic break, the many different therapists they visit who don't know how to deal with the family, Rose going on and off her meds, the best therapist dying and her reaction of not taking the meds and getting kicked out of the halfway house, problems with the insurance company, Rose's next psychotic break involving the piano, and finally her suicide. Of course Amy Bloom puts some lighter scenes in the middle so it's not too much for readers to handle and so it doesn't get unpredictable. For example, Rose and Addie's choir scene, joking to the therapists, finding the right one, and Rose agreeing to take her meds in exchange for the car. Without these there would be so much tension that the story almost wouldn't be tense at all because there would be no balance. But throughout the story, I just wanted to keep reading and see what would happen next, because there were so many ups and downs I wondered if there was hope for Rose or if her ending would be somber, and that surely pulled me in.