In Where is the Mango Princess?, the Crimmins family embarks on a free vacation that is plagued with mosquitoes, bills and arguments and ends up with Alan Crimmins being airlifted to Kingston General Hospital. Author Cathy Crimmins guides readers through the resulting changes in her life. She begins her vacation accompanied by a charismatic and intelligent husband, and ends her vacation after a boat accident that leaves his brain severely traumatized. Upon next seeing his wife, Alan asks where the "other Cathy" is. As if caring for her changed husband was not daunting enough, Crimmins must also fight with stingy AETNA healthcare, which, throughout the book, refuses to provide him even minimal services.
Before being hit by a speedboat, Alan Crimmins was an intelligent and loving husband, a caring father and a great lover. But brain damage left Alan with the intellectual and emotional capacities of a 13-year-old, and incapable of performing everyday actions. Alan's new state wreaks havok on his relationship with his daughter, Kelly. He frequently yells at her, then forgets about it. It also strains his relationship with his wife because of his need for support and attention. Their love life becomes confused, since Alan has lost his understanding of love-making.
The story of Alan's change, and the effect it has on his family comes across with direct honesty about personal experience and clarity with regard to medical detail. Crimmins' words invite the reader inside her mind and push empathy to its greatest limit.
Crimmins tells me that she originally wanted to write the book by having one chapter of narration followed by a chapter of medical explanation, but that this form made reading tedious. When first writing the book, she says, she felt mixed emotions because she knew it would cross the final boundary between her professional and personal lives. When I ask her about using Where is the Mango Princess for a title she responds that the phrase conveyed a theme illustrated throughout the novel: "Where is the Mango Princess?" were the first words spoken by her husband when he came out of his coma. She later found out that there is an Indian legend involving a mango princess and a peach who discuss what it means to be a person.
The emotional characters of both Kelly and Cathy are put through incredible ordeals as they reshape their lives in the constant presence of the traumatic brain injury survivor. They ultimately come to realize that the old Alan will never return. Kelly has trouble dealing with the accident and its emotional impact as Cathy tries both to protect her daughter from Alan's new temperamental character and to provide multi-dimensional support.
But instead of facing the harsh criticism Crimmins expected, Where is the Mango Princess was immediately embraced by survivors and their families. Crimmins says people approached her to cry and tell her that her story was theirs, too. As Cathy Crimmins herself described it, the book is really about defining oneself. Crimmins' task was made more difficult by the fact that Alan displays no physical disabilities, so that whenever people meet him they just think he's an eccentric.
Cathy and Alan Crimmins both received their Ph.Ds at Penn. So the story strikes a personal chord not only for its incredible description of a tragic accident, but also for its mentions of Bennett Hall and Locust Walk. Crimmins brings pain home.
