Manic depression, now known as bi-polar disorder, is a heart-breaking disease. As with most mental illnesses, it affects not only the person suffering, but also their friends and family members in ways often unthinkable for those unaffected. How much more suffering would be felt if the person with the disease was a doctor - and one who had studied the mental illness he was beginning to suffer from?

Mimi Baird "lost" her father as a very young girl. She was not told about her father's illness or what had happened to him - simply that he was "away". It wasn't until she was an adult that she learned the truth, and was given a unique manuscript written by her father *while he was suffering from his disease*. As she began to put the pieces together, she soon forged a look at the father she barely knew - but had never forgotten.

He Wanted the Moon is an apt title for this story. While it is an interesting look inside a patient suffering from manic depression during a time when such a thing was VERY misunderstood, it feels a bit incomplete. For those not familiar with this disease, or with the "treatments" given to patients during this time, there is a lot left unsaid. I realize Ms. Baird was primarily interested in her father's treatment and history, however more information into standard processes, other famous sufferers, and so on would have given a better basis for a fuller picture of the disease as a whole and her father's place within it.

Having said that - it is a look into the disease that most do not get and that most sufferers are incapable of giving. I can't imagine the despair for an analytical mind like Dr. Baird's as he realized he was slipping further and further into madness. And while his aftermath was covered somewhat quickly, I wonder if he even knew at the end how much of him was lost.