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RELATED LINKS

• Ms. Campbell's official site
• Q & A with Ms. Campbell
• National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
• Ms. Campbell featured on The Road to Health

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Tavis: Bebe Moore Campbell is the author of several acclaimed novels including 3 "New York Times" best sellers. She's also a past recipient of the NAACP Image Award for literature. Her latest book is receiving terrific reviews. It's called "72 Hour Hold," her fifth novel. Bebe, nice to see you.

Bebe Moore Campbell: Nice to see you, too, Tavis.

Tavis: I read--was it the "L.A. Times?" I read somewhere the other day, somebody proclaimed this the summer--I'm paraphrasing here--the summer of the black female novelist?

Campbell: Well, there's a lot of us. Yeah, I saw the story.

Tavis: There's a lot of y'all. You're out, Terry McMillan is out, Benilde Little is out. Missing a couple of 'em, but there are 5 or 6 of y'all with major books out this summer.

Campbell: Pearl Cleage.

Tavis: Did y'all design that? Did y'all have a conference call one day and say...

Campbell: You know we didn't.

Tavis: Ha ha ha! Let's put a book out there, all of us, each of us.

Campbell: Well, it's a good summer. It's a good summer thing to do.

Tavis: Is that a good thing? And I ask is it a good thing because when I see stories like that, on the one hand I would assume that you and all your other sister friend authors want to be judged by their own work. On the other hand, it doesn't hurt when somebody writes a big feature piece and it goes around the country saying that all these books are out this summer. Is that grouping something that offends you?

Campbell: Well, the attention is a big plus. I'm not offended by being in the company of these women because they're stellar and they're good writers and we all write our own stories. So it still is news when a lot of African American women are writing books at the same time. I hope we get to the point where that's not news. But we're not there yet, Tavis.

Tavis: Yeah. One of the things that does, in fact, distinguish you from those other women who are fine writers in their own right--to your point--one of the things that distinguishes you, Bebe, it seems to me is that you have unique way of weaving in social themes, social issues with your work. I mean, you can't put a book out in the summer for sisters that doesn't have a little romance in it, and I ain't mad at you for that, but you will weave in some social consciousness with the romance, and you do that very brilliantly. And you've done it in this book and the title, in fact, "72 Hour Hold," speaks to that, does it not?

Campbell: Well, "72 Hour Hold" is the length of time that a psychiatric facility can hold a mentally ill person against his will if he meets the criteria of a danger to self or danger to others or gravely disabled. And you know you're supposed to write what you know, and I know this world.

I have a mentally ill loved one, a family member, and I've been on a journey with my loved one for about 9 years. So I know about 72 hour holds, I know about conservatorship, I know about the psychotropic drugs, I know about mania. My loved one has bipolar disorder. And I also know about stigma. I know about feeling really, really, really bad and really, really ashamed and not wanting to tell anybody and letting it be my own little deep, dark secret, and I know how useless that is because people with mental illnesses don't keep your secrets.

So I think it's...what I wanted to do was to write a good book. I gotta get you from page 1 to page 2 to page 3, and I think I've done that with this. But I'm really--mental illness is my passion now because I've formed a bond with other people who have mentally ill loved ones, many of whom are African American. And we first formed our own support group, then we got involved with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and in Southern California, in Los Angeles with some other women we formed a chapter of NAMI, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

And the other thing is I really, really want African Americans to get mental illness out of our collective closet, Tavis, because I keep thinking about "Soul Food," the movie with Uncle Pete up in the back room, you know, when they slide that dinner tray in and...and we have a lot of Uncle Petes in our communities and in communities of color. And we always say, "Well, Uncle Pete is a little strange. Uncle Pete doesn't like to be around people," but we never say Uncle Pete has schizophrenia. And as long as we're in denial about that, we're not gonna get any help for Uncle Pete.

Tavis: I suspect that where writing is concerned--you would know better than I do since you're "The New York Times" bestselling author, not me...-I suspect that the advice you offered earlier, to write about what you know is good advice.

Campbell: Or what you want to research.

Tavis: Or what you want to research. But I also suspect that it's pretty good advice from your publisher to write what's gonna sell, and to write something that people find interesting and fascinating and you are a novelist, so how does one take a subject like that--that ain't the sexiest thing to write about--

Campbell: No, it's not.

Tavis: And weave it into a novel that's good and that's a page-turner.

Campbell: Well, I was blessed to have an editor who lets me write my passion, and she knew that this was my passion. And, you know, this doesn't--this is a story about a mother, Keri, who has a mentally ill daughter, Trina. Now, Keri's caught up in the middle of a love triangle with her ex- boyfriend and...-her ex-husband and her actor boyfriend, and she's got a business and she's got girlfriends and she's got a lot going on in her life, and she's an interesting, complex character. And all of that just sort of stops when she tries to get healing for her child. And she becomes so frustrated with the mental health system that she opts for a radical approach. And that radical approach takes her on a journey that leads to her healing as well as an attempt to get her child healed. So, you know, it's not just about mental illness. I mean, there are pages where you're gonna laugh out loud. And one of the things that when I got into a support group that I allowed myself to do was to laugh at some of the humorous things that occur when you're on a journey with a mentally ill person.

Tavis: I wonder, though, to that point, whether or not it is difficult. On the one hand, I can see it being easier to write about something that you do know. On the other hand, I can see it being difficult even in the context of a novel to actually put that kind of pain on paper, if you will.

Campbell: Well, I don't bring pain to the computer. I think I get through the pain before I approach the computer. In other words, I was walking around with this on my shoulder for years.

Tavis: Is this therapeutic in some way?

Campbell: I think writing is therapeutic for me, yes, because in the frustration of my own dealing with the mental health system, I dreamed up something that I wish existed, but I couldn't find, and this was a radical approach to healing my loved one. So, yeah, getting it on the page and having it really there was therapy for me. And usually writing is not therapy for me. It's work, and it's art. Yeah.

Tavis: Now, I wouldn't be worth my weight as a talk show host if I let that last comment go without going back to pick up on it. So when you suggest that you had to create a world--which is what writers do wonderfully well--to create a world where this mental illness is concerned with regard to your loved one that did not exist, what did you need that you couldn't find that you had to create?

Campbell: Well, I became...in searching for healing for my loved one, I became very frustrated with the mental health system. Just the title of the book, "72 Hour Hold," it takes a good 4 to 6 weeks for the medications that help with schizophrenia or bipolar or depression to get into the person's system. 72 hour hold is like a band-aid for a hemorrhage. You can have someone who meets the criteria-- danger to self or danger to others--and when the psychiatric evaluation team arrives at your home, the person pulls it together and presents very well and they go away. So, you know, there's all kinds of frustrations. You've got patients' rights, which I fully understand because there are bad people in the world who would rip off mentally ill people. I understand that, but it's awfully hard to cope with patients' rights when that person is going to be returning to a family member's home. If you're that family member and the 21-year-old says, "Don't tell this person anything," and so you can't get any information and yet you've gotta take that person home at the end of 3 days, that's very difficult as well.

Tavis: Obviously, your books are not just written--not just read--it's certainly written by a black woman--they're not just read by African American women and others, because if they were just read by black women, you wouldn't be on "The New York Times" bestseller list, so obviously, a lot of folk are reading your book even outside of the black community, and yet you mentioned earlier that this is an issue that is of particular importance to you because of the way the black community treats it or maltreats the issue. Does that mean that white folk are like pushing their mentally ill ones out front and saying, "Hey, we deal with this and y'all don't?"

Campbell: No, no. No one, no one wants to say, "I'm not in control of my mind." No one wants to say, "I love someone, I have a family member who is not in control of his mind." Everybody has problems dealing with this. But our problems are greater because we feel the stigma more keenly. We already feel stigmatized by virtue of the color our skins. So then to add something else to this is even more shameful, so we go into denial. The other part of this in terms of why African Americans are less likely to get help--we're less likely to have insurance, we're underinsured, and then we've got--we don't totally trust that medical establishment when that medical establishment is giving out pills for our minds. We still remember Tuskegee, so we're not totally on board with someone saying there's something wrong with our minds. And yet, I think we've gotta be very, very cautious--I do because there are misdiagnoses and poor diagnosis and no diagnosis, but the danger of not getting help, not getting diagnosed, being in denial is that we wind up in prison, Tavis. So we're disproportionately incarcerated anyway, and there's a disproportionate number of people with mental illnesses in jail. And then what happened a few weeks ago in Los Angeles with the mentally ill man being shot and the baby--the baby being killed, you know, to me that points out that there was a need a long, long time ago, help that this person didn't get.

Tavis: On the back of this book as I close, Maya Angelou, who we all love and respect says, "I am grateful for Bebe Moore Campbell. Campbell fearlessly unveils the pain of loss and the ecstasy of love. Add to that courage, and the graceful ability to write very, very well." So says Dr. Maya Angelou. You've done that in this book. If this book--and I suspect it will do as well as your others have done--so "New York Times" list, get ready for "72 Hour Hold." If it didn't do as well tackling a subject like this that means a great deal to you, how would that encourage you, discourage you, affect you in your future writings?

Campbell: Well, it affects me as a--you know, as a business person, as an artist business person. You don't get the sales, then, you know, what's the next contract gonna be like...-but there's a 2-fold mission on this book tour. I really, really want people to come out of the closet. I really want people to face the issues. I was successful along with NAMI-Inglewood in getting July proclaimed National Minority Mental Health month by Mayor Anthony Williams of Washington, D.C. and Jane Campbell of Cleveland, Ohio. And so, we're gonna have a whole big push. July's going forward to get the churches, get the civic organizations to get some information out there so people are less afraid and less in denial about this. "72 Hour Hold" is my calling card, but it's really just the beginning.

Tavis: Well, there's no denying that Bebe Moore Campbell writes excellent books that we all love to read. "72 Hour Hold" is the most recent one. Bebe, nice to see you.

Campbell: Nice to see you, too, Tavis.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on public radio this weekend and every weekend on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A., thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.