Chemistry

Chemistry details the lives of two young people who connect through their experiences of mental illness. Steph barely holds down a job as a bartender while suffering from a lifelong depression that has led her through psychiatrists’ offices, group therapy sessions, and countless pill bottles. Jamie, who overcame humble roots to graduate early from Harvard and fast track his way into politics, pushes himself so far that he winds up in the hospital, having ripped inch-deep gashes in his skin. With a diagnosis of unipolar mania, he suddenly finds himself plunged into the mystifying world of psychopharmacology. As Steph helps Jamie navigate the jungle of pills and therapies, a romance develops between them, and they are forced to confront their understandings of love and mental illness. Bursting with the witty, sharp dialogue prevalent in Rice’s other work, Chemistry presents an honest and incisive depiction of mental illness as it shapes people’s daily lives.