1. Hillbilly Gothic Genre
2. Adrienne Martini Hillbilly Gothic

A Gothic accent comes to more 1950's styles with the Gothabilly type. This type was inspired by throwing Goth traits onto the Rockabilly and Psychobilly scenes, which were combinations of rock and country, or 'hillbilly' music. Thus, Goth and Rockabilly/Psychobilly came together, in music and in fashion, to create the Gothabilly. Start reading Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The following is an excerpt from Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Adrienne Martini, published by Free Press.

Myfamily has a grand tradition. After a woman gives birth, she goes mad.I thought that I would be the one to escape. Given my spectacularfailure, my hope is now that my daughter will be the one.

Hillbilly Gothic Genre

Onthe day that I admit defeat, I have been crying for days and I am on myway to the emergency room of my local hospital. But of course since I'mrunning on empty psychologically, my car would be, too. So I pull intoa gas station in the middle of the mother of all summer storms.

Noone at the gas station will look at me, which is odd considering thatmost people will at least give you a smile at any time of day inKnoxville, Tennessee. The July air is heavy and wet. Oily splotches andknots of old gum dot the rain-slicked asphalt. My blue tie-dyed T-shirtis soaked and clinging to my quasideflated postpartum belly, showingall of the other drivers I was wearing maternity shorts, the kind withthe stretchy nylon panel in the front—all that I could fit into twoweeks after my daughter's birth. I could have braided the hair on mylegs and the hair on my head looked like a nest of live eels writhingin the rain.

My sneakers squoosh as I fumble out mydebit card and swipe it in the pump. Miraculously, my hands remainsteady for the first time in a few days, but I sniff and snortconstantly as tears pour typhoonlike out of my eyes.

Threeother drivers gas up and studiously ignore me, including one right nextto me. While Knoxville is known for its general friendliness, I've alsodiscovered that it loves a good spectacle. If a stranger appears to beon the verge of a colorful collapse, gawkers flock for front-row seats.I’d assumed that no one could tell that I’d been crying, what with therain. I’m lying to myself. My eyes are red-rimmed after forty-eighthours of not sleeping. I’m cursed with a near-constant sorrow so deepthat it would make a great bluegrass song. Ralph Stanley and I couldmake millions, provided I can get through the next twenty-four hourswithout killing myself.

I’d also assumed that no onewould care at this particular station, simply because it is in one ofKnoxville’s few dicey areas. The projects, such as they are in thissmall southern city wrapped in Appalachia’s arms, are just across thestreet. The rescue ministry is a few blocks away and, from here, Icould toss my car keys into Knoxville’s largest nightlife hub, wherebars and dance clubs spill out their 2 A.M. drunks, then said drunkswander up to this gas station to stock up on cigarettes and six-packs.The clerks here must have strong nerves or they are researchingsociology dissertations.

Still, in the harsh lightof day, I am enough of a sight that I unnerve even those who spendtheir nights dealing with drug-induced shootings and drive-byvomitings. Normally, I’d be proud of this. I always revel in the chanceto break out my cardigan-sweatered shell in a town full of supersizedBaptist churches and Junior Leaguers. Now, I look like a freak whoscares all of the other freaks. My father would be so proud.

Oncegassed up, I’ll drive myself to the emergency room, where I’ll checkmyself in to Tower 4, a local psych ward. I could have seen it from mygas pump if it weren’t so overcast. I’ll stay there for the better partof a week, bonding with my fellow loonies while someone else takes careof my brand-new baby because I am a failure. New moms are supposed tobe joy made flesh, yet motherhood and I met like a brick meets water.I’m drowning here, not waving.

This wasn’t supposed to happen and, yet, it was inevitable, given my past.

Duringmy colorful confinement, in a conversation with a ward social worker, Idescribed the hillbilly Gothic patchwork of suicides, manic depression,and bipolar disorders that is my mother’s family and the notablesuicide attempt on my father’s side. She commented that it was a wonderI hadn’t been there before. Now, I can chuckle when I say that. Then,her astute comment touched off yet another deluge of tears.

Iwasn’t the first of my generation to log some time in the loony bin.One of my cousins, in her early twenties at the time, was committedafter the birth of her first child and was later diagnosed as bipolar.Her older sister has battled depression since her first child was bornwhen she was fresh out of her teens. While most of the madness comes onpostpartum, it isn’t confined to it. One of her children, who is stilla teenager, has also checked in to her local Tower 4, a move that hasbecome my family’s version of summering in the Hamptons.

Ourtale begins in Parkersburg, West Virginia, a microdot of a town buriedin the hollers of the Appalachians. Driving into this part of thecountry is an adventure to the uninitiated. The road cuts through themountains, creating a narrow canyon fenced on each side by rock orsteep cliffs. Greenery sprouts impossibly from these stark faces. Onemust pay attention when arriving in Parkersburg. The unobservant—aperson folding a map, say—will miss the downtown and wonder why thereare houses in such a desolate area.

Adrienne Martini Hillbilly Gothic

Isolation haslong been the hallmark of Appalachia. Before the era of reliabletransportation, entire generations could be born, live, and die withoutever clapping eyes on a stranger’s face. Even after the rise of Toyotasand cable TV, a deep suspicion of new faces and, to a large extent, newideas still thrives. This wariness is warranted; rarely is a personfrom Appalachia portrayed in a flattering light. An Appalachian twangmarks someone as a hick who should be mocked. Deliverance does not exist in a vacuum.

Mymother’s family springs from this setting. The isolation and suspicionthat inform the region also inform generations. It is coded in ourgenes like brown hair. For decades, outside help was never sought. Norwas it even imagined to be needed. My family tree kept growing inward,as each successive batch of children convinced their spouses, who werealso from the region, to keep these matters within the family. Tighterand tighter the tree grew, and few people saw a need to thin thebranches to let in a little nourishing light.

Thiscautionary tale is my attempt to do a little pruning. This is myattempt to untangle my family’s history of mental illness. It is astory of mothers and daughters as well as a journey in search ofabsolution. It is about being at your most unbalanced when the rest ofsociety expects you to be at your most joyful. It is about living inand with mountains, with occasional lapses into blue-grass and banjos.The past must be understood and, in some sense, loved, in order to beovercome.

Here is where my maternalgreat-grandmother abandoned her three children. Here is where mymaternal grandmother went quietly mad. Here is where my uncle came homefrom Vietnam, put his gun to his head, and killed himself. And here iswhere my mother met my father, and then escaped the geography but notthe heredity. Years later, I would be back in the same scenery, if afew miles farther south. The irony is not lost.

Forsix weeks after my birth, my mother didn’t wash her hair. Now, sheclaims that she was postnatally splendid, except for that one littledetail. Her assurances don’t…assure. At the time of my birth, which wasin the early 1970s, little was known about postpartum depression andeven less could be done about it. My mother’s interior landscape hasalways been a mystery to me and I didn’t understand that her blackmoods weren’t the norm. My childhood wasn’t spent around happyfamilies, against whom I could compare my sad home. Even in a big city,Mom and I remained more or less isolated. One of my fondest memories isof listening to my mother breathlessly sob on the other side of herbedroom door. There was nothing I could do, and, in so many ways, itwas all my fault.

I swore I would not do the same tomy daughter, yet, for two weeks after her birth, I did nothing but cryand, eventually, completely came apart like a wet tissue. My mothercontends that this happened because I waited until my early thirties tohave a baby and, in her words, “worked for too long” before fulfillingby biological destiny. My mom has never quite come to terms with theconcept of women with careers. In her eyes, jobs are just what you havebefore you have a baby and your life becomes bliss. We all constructour own versions of reality in order to deal with the day, but thisreinvention makes my eyeballs ache. If my birth caused bliss for mymom, please let me never find it for myself.

In manyways, my depression was the end state of an almost perversely naturalprogression. Not only is my family history shot through with crazy, butthere had also been warning signs before I gave birth. My teen yearsalso had been full of undiagnosed fits of melancholy that went beyondwhat one would normally expect from a girl that age. In my earlytwenties, I scared the bejeezus out of a psychiatry intern by burstinginto tears in her office and not being able to stop. There were signs,all right. The big red ones that signal danger.

—from Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Adrienne Martini. Copyright © 2006 by Adrienne Martini . Published by The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.