"Confessions of a Bi-Polar Mardi Gras Queen" swings between hilarity and devastation in this collection of quirky true stories. A former debutante and one of nine children growing up in a well-to-do family in Southern Louisiana, Marie Etienne spent decades risking everything in her need to find happiness, sanity, and love. Her increasingly erratic behavior, which took its toll on her two sons, mirrored the drama of her upbringing. At 43, on the brink of suicide and recently diagnosed as bi-polar, her last-ditch hope was to come to terms with her deep-rooted feelings of fear, shame, and resentment by facing head-on who she really was, who she wanted to be, and what she was willing to do to make her life worth living. Etienne's fast-paced memoir, told through non-linear, thematically connected stories, reveals the unstoppable determination of a woman forging her own path. "Confessions of a Bi-Polar Mardi Gras Queen" explores the themes of love versus lust, the legacy of abuse and mental illness, the impact of a sibling's murder, magic, faith, forgiveness, and courage....