There Aren't Any Kitchens in Heaven

There Aren’t Any Kitchens in Heaven is a compelling and compassionate account of mental illness and its devastating effects on not only the afflicted individual but also on the family who loves him. Author Claudia M. Jones’s older brother, Paul, was diagnosed in his early twenties with paranoid schizophrenia. Dr. Jones’s story chronicles the onset and escalation of her brother’s schizophrenia and how her family coped with the many and varied challenges of living with his illness. The author’s personal recollections are supplemented by extracts from her mother’s journal, kept during the most turbulent years of Paul’s illness, and actual letters and reports written by many of the psychiatrists, psychologists, and other professionals who attended Paul. There Aren’t Any Kitchens in Heaven is unique in the literature of mental illness, in that it lays no blame on the mental health or legal systems for their inability to help Paul, focusing instead on the reality of Paul’s day-to-day life and his mother and sister’s unwavering acceptance of him. It is a harrowing yet ultimately uplifting story of loving endurance and enduring love.

Dr. Claudia M. Jones holds three degrees from Barry University in Miami, Florida: a bachelor’s degree in exceptional education, a master’s degree in learning disabilities, and a Ph.D. in education and leadership. She has over fifteen years of teaching experience as a public school exceptional education teacher in Miami-Dade County, the fourth largest school district in the nation, and as an adjunct professor at a Florida university where she teaches a variety of courses. But Dr. Jones has a personal as well as professional connection to the world of exceptional individuals, as she is the sister of a man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.