{"product_id":"down-below-9781681370606","title":"Down Below","description":"\u003cb\u003eA stunning work of memoir and a\u003cb\u003en unforgettable depiction of the brilliance and madness by\u003c\/b\u003e one of Surrealism's most compelling figures\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 1937 Leonora Carrington--later to become one of the twentieth century's great painters of the weird, the alarming, and the wild--was a nineteen-year-old art student in London, beautiful and unapologetically rebellious. At a dinner party, she met the artist Max Ernst. The two fell in love and soon departed to live and paint together in a farmhouse in Provence. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In 1940, the invading German army arrested Ernst and sent him to a concentration camp. Carrington suffered a psychotic break. She wept for hours. Her stomach became \"the \u003ci\u003emirror\u003c\/i\u003e of the earth\"--of all worlds in a hostile universe--and she tried to purify the evil by compulsively vomiting. As the Germans neared the south of France, a friend persuaded Carrington to flee to Spain. Facing the approach \"of robots, of thoughtless, fleshless beings,\" she packed a suitcase that bore on a brass plate the word \u003ci\u003eRevelation\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e This was only the beginning of a journey into madness that was to end with Carrington confined in a mental institution, overwhelmed not only by her own terrible imaginings but by her doctor's sadistic course of treatment. In \u003ci\u003eDown Below\u003c\/i\u003e she describes her ordeal--in which the agonizing and the marvelous were equally combined--with a startling, almost impersonal precision and without a trace of self-pity. Like Daniel Paul Schreber's \u003ci\u003eMemoirs of My Nervous Illness\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDown Below\u003c\/i\u003e brings the hallucinatory logic of madness home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Leonora Carrington\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/18\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e Nyrb Classics\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 112\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.3lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.80h x 4.90w x 0.40d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781681370606","brand":"Ripon Bookstore","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44148221280301,"sku":"9781681370606","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/0501\/1245\/files\/img_369938ce-8546-4a43-961e-e4af8954470d.jpg?v=1757217764","url":"https:\/\/riponbookstore.com\/products\/down-below-9781681370606","provider":"Ripon Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}