Adrienne Martini at BookPeople Tonight

Just weeks after giving birth to her first child, Adrienne Martini stood red-eyed and rain-soaked at a gas station in an unsavory part of town:

I am enough of a sight that I unnerve even those who spend their nights dealing with drug-induced shootings and drive-by vomitings. . . . I look like a freak who scares all of the other freaks.

Martini was on her way to check herself into the hospital's psychiatric ward. She was suffering from postpartum depression, a not uncommon condition among new mothers and a not unexpected event for Martini. Her family history was a "hillbilly Gothic patchwork of suicides, manic depression, and bipolar disorders."

In Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood, Martini combines poignant observation, wry humor, and brutal honesty to explore postpartum depression through her own experience, her family's history, and the stories of other women.

A contributor to Austinmama and a former writer for the Austin Chronicle, Martini will read from her book at BookPeople at 7 p.m. tonight.

Adrienne Martini presents Hillbilly Gothic
Tuesday, August 8
7 p.m.
BookPeople
6th & Lamar