‘[A] moving, beautifully written book about love and mental health and life’ BOB ODENKIRK ‘Fiercely intelligent, humane and necessary’ NATHAN FILER, author of THE SHOCK OF THE FALL 'At its heart a story about love … an astonishing new voice' ALI MILLAR, author of THE LAST DAYS ‘I’m scared the bad people will hear me talking to you.’ I watch him take his notebook and a marker pen from his bag. As he zips the compartment back up I see the tip of our large, serrated kitchen knife, the one that went missing last night. Zach was nineteen when Tanya discovered him rerouting the wires of their landline, sure that the phone was bugged, that his friends were Mafia, that the helicopters swirling above were deployed by spies, that he couldn’t trust anyone – her included. That moment upturned and unmoored everything. It would strand them both in a profound and terrifying isolation the way that perhaps only a psychotic break – or loving someone who is experiencing one – can. Zig-Zag Boy is a journey along the tough frontiers of love and madness. As Tanya fights for answers and understanding – coming up against broken healthcare systems in the UK and the US – she is forced to question whether there were warning signs she missed, whether Zach will be able to have a normal life, and what ‘normal’ really means.

'A moving portrait of a mother's love for her son ... fiercely intelligent, humane and necessary' NATHAN FILER, author of THE SHOCK OF THE FALL 'At its heart a story about love ... an astonishing new voice' ALI MILLAR, author of THE LAST DAYS 'I'm scared the bad people will hear me talking to you.' I watch him take his notebook and a marker pen from his bag. As he zips the compartment back up I see the tip of our large, serrated kitchen knife, the one that went missing last night. Zach was nineteen when Tanya discovered him rerouting the wires of their landline, sure that the phone was bugged, that his friends were Mafia, that the helicopters swirling above were deployed by spies, that he couldn't trust anyone - her included. That moment upturned and unmoored everything. It would strand them both in a profound and terrifying isolation the way that perhaps only a psychotic break - or loving someone who is experiencing one - can. Zig-Zag Boy is a journey along the tough frontiers of love and madness. As Tanya fights for answers and understanding - coming up against broken healthcare systems in the UK and the US - she is forced to question whether there were warning signs she missed, whether Zach will be able to have a normal life, and what 'normal' really means.

One night in 2009, Tanya Frank finds her nineteen-year-old son, Zach—gentle and full of promise—in the grip of what the psychiatrists would label a psychotic break. Suddenly and inexplicably, Tanya is thrown into a parallel universe: Zach’s world, where the phones are bugged, his friends have joined the Mafia, and helicopters are spying on his family. In the years following Zach’s shifting psychiatric diagnoses, Tanya goes to war for her son, desperate to find the right answer, the right drug, the right doctor to bring him back to reality. She struggles to navigate archaic mental healthcare systems, first in California and then in her native London during lockdown. Meanwhile, the boy she raised—the chatty, precocious dog-lover, the teenager who spent summers surfing with his big brother, the UCLA student—suffers the effects of multiple hospitalizations, powerful drugs that blunt his emotions, therapies that don’t work, and torturous nights on the streets. Holding on to startling moments of hope and seeking solace in nature and community, Tanya learns how to abandon her fears for the future and accept the mysteries of her son’s altered states. With tenderness, lyricism, and generous candor, this compelling story conveys the power of a mother’s love. Zig-Zag Boy is both a moving lamentation for things lost and a brave testament to the people we become in difficult circumstances.