Silk Flowers Never Die: Love, Death, Mental Illness and Courage in an Internationally Renowned Family

Silk Flowers Never Die is an important and intensely personal memoir, powerfully showing with humanity and humour, the difficulties that exist for any family trying to cope with schizophrenia and mental distress. In a compelling story that reveals how much stranger than fiction fact is, Stella Mazzucchelli describes a personal journey in which she changes from living a life of high class pleasure to being a committed mother, determined to preserve her son from the worst effects of mental illness, while his young wife is dying of cancer.

Used to a life style of privilege and wealth, the discovery that her son was diagnosed with schizophrenia was a challenge that the author was ill-prepared to meet. Yet Silk Flowers Never Die is the story of not only how Stella Mazzucchelli learnt to care for her son but of her reassessment of her own life and values.

As she tries to discover more about the affliction and live with the inevitable dramatic changes within her family, Stella realises she needs to find a wider understanding of her own life and the hidden realities that lie behind our daily existence. Also, as her son s condition becomes known, she experiences the stigma and secrecy that often accompanies mental disease especially within renowned families used to an appealing and acceptable high public profile.

Remarkably, as Stella strives to rise to these unexpected and often lonely challenges, we see her transformed from a beautiful, over-protected Society woman with alcohol issues, to an impressive, courageous earth-mother. Now leading her life in radical new ways, she campaigns to reduce the stigma attached to mental illness by using her privileged position to positive effect.

This moving book is informative on a host of subjects, ranging from the often vacuous lifestyle of the International Super-Rich to the profundities of facing terminal illness and mental disease. Due to its intelligence, insight, and compassion the appeal of this amazing story and struggle should be universal.