THE BLACK WIND

There is a form of cruelty that mental illness refines over time: theintelligence of camouflage. For years, the Black Wind blew behindLia's back, hiding within the folds of a fragile normality, playingthe part of quietness to protect the happiness of her loved ones. Butbehind the silences, the hinted smiles, and the reassuring phonecalls, a subterranean, ruthless, and invisible battle was raging.Through the meticulous reconstruction of handwritten diaries,childhood memories, and sterile medical records, Leo breaks thesilence of a lifetime. He retraces the narrow corridors of a routinemade of hospitalizations sought out like trenches, of hours dictatedby implacable pharmacological clocks, and of a chemistry that putsthe monster to sleep but shuts down the body.This book is not just the diary of a long and painful shipwreck.It is the story of a family—a son, a wife, a sister, a partner—whochose not to look the other way. But above all, it is a tribute to awoman who was never just her illness, and to a son who learned tostay standing amidst those ruins, discovering that the mostbeautiful reconstruction is the love that remains.