You probably wouldn't even have things like creme brulee. Your sister, Maud, has bipolar disease, or manic-depression. This is the kind of book I wish I'd been able to read as someone seeing someone through the illness. There are very few treatises on informal caregiving. On a bigger level, the subject of depression became much bigger than I knew it could.
Depression is such a metaphorically rich illness.
There's the sort of intense questioning about life and alienation and loneliness and death. I have to say that her experience, while very hard, has been very crisp and delineated. There's been a very crisp beginning, middle and end to her episodes. It's never cured, but it is treatable. Medication does work for her.