In Bitter Medicine, award-winning playwright Clem Martini chronicles his family’s 30-year struggle with schizophrenia, and in so doing reveals a deeply flawed Canadian health care system. Clem’s perspective on the suffering that has plagued those closest to him – his brothers Ben and Olivier have both been diagnosed with the disease – is enhanced by Olivier’s beautifully scrawled drawings and notes. What emerges is a dialogue between siblings – Clem expressing frustration with a culture that consistently fails his brothers, and Olivier depicting his own personal journey through that same broken system.

Employing a light hand, the Martini brothers successfully move readers to challenge their own ideas about mental illness. The book is heartbreaking, despite the fact that the images and words are presented in a sparse, straightforward manner, often lacking great emotional detail. The minimalism is a fitting approach given that Clem describes schizophrenia as a disease that strips things away. “It seizes people. It confiscates relationships. It snatches peace of mind.”

The Martini family’s search for empathy, understanding, and resources proves fruitless. They encounter a lack of understanding or assistance from health care practitioners, employers, and even friends. Throughout, Clem refuses to compromise his political views on health care funding, and does a very good job of outlining the structural problems that make the system so damaging to those it aims to help. Bitter Medicine’s conclusion offers some solutions, but the book’s primary goal is to expose the extraordinary struggles of those we have collectively turned our backs on.

Clem’s perspective frequently dominates; the reader is left wanting more of Olivier’s voice and his frantic, raw drawings, which at times appear as more of an adjunct than one half of a narrative partnership. Clem himself acknowledges his limitations as a narrator. He feels incapable of fully conveying his brother’s struggles: “How could I? He’s lived an experience that I have only observed.”

Overall, a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness plagues the memoir; any victory within its pages is small and fleeting. The book’s greatest strength is its profound ability to humanize a frequently misunderstood condition, and to highlight mental illness as the “orphan child” of the health care community.