"Ballad of the Black and Blue Mind weaves stories of psychoanalysts and their patients against the bright-lights backdrop of their relentless city, New York. Anne Roiphe's characters are cutters and thieves, disappointed and disappointing children, the sexually confused, true and false friends. Dr. Estelle Berman is a distinguished psychiatrist who lives and practices on the Upper West Side. She observes her own decline with much the same acceptance...