The Cen­ter of the Uni­verse imme­di­ate­ly cap­ti­vates with a nar­ra­tive that is com­prised of mys­tery, dra­ma, com­e­dy, and tragedy and that elic­its the full gamut of human response. It is the tale of Nan­cy Bachrach, whose mother’s bipo­lar dis­or­der dom­i­nates her life. Bachrach, an adver­tis­ing exec­u­tive, is sud­den­ly called back to the U.S. from Paris, where she is try­ing to cul­ti­vate a cul­tur­al taste for antiper­spi­rant amongst the French. She returns to deal with a parental cat­a­stro­phe that could have been writ­ten by Oliv­er Sachs. We are intro­duced to her moth­er as “…Nor­ma Desmond, descend­ing the stair­case in Sun­set Boule­vard, eyes wide and frozen, get­ting ready for her close-up. She is Salome, strip­ping the veil off the face of the cos­mos. She is my moth­er, Lola Horn­stein. And she is crazy.” Lola’s sto­ry can fill a page and for­tu­nate­ly, Bachrach ​“began tak­ing notes for a sto­ry about my moth­er the minute I could write.” Bachrach mas­ters the lit­er­ary style of the mem­oir with inspir­ing prose. This book will tran­scend a pop­u­lar audi­ence seek­ing an absorb­ing tale of mad­ness in a Jew­ish home in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island, to those who will be edu­ca­tion­al­ly enter­tained by the fol­ly of the neu­ropsy­chi­atric universe.