Book description
'My first serious blackout marked the line between sanity and
insanity. Though I would have moments of lucidity over the coming days
and weeks, I would never again be the same person ...'
Susannah Cahalan was a happy, clever, healthy twenty-four-year old.
Then one day she woke up in hospital, with no memory of what had
happened or how she had got there. Within weeks, she would be
transformed into someone unrecognizable, descending into a state of
acute psychosis, undergoing rages and convulsions, hallucinating that
her father had murdered his wife; that she could control time with her
mind. Everything she had taken for granted about her life, and who she
was, was wiped out.
Brain on Fire is Susannah's story of her terrifying descent
into madness and the desperate hunt for a diagnosis, as, after dozens
of tests and scans, baffled doctors concluded she should be confined
in a psychiatric ward. It is also the story of how one brilliant man,
Syria-born Dr Najar, finally proved - using a simple pen and paper -
that Susannah's psychotic behaviour was caused by a rare autoimmune
disease attacking her brain. His diagnosis of this little-known
condition, thought to have been the real cause of devil-possessions
through history, saved her life, and possibly the lives of many
others. Cahalan takes readers inside this newly-discovered disease
through the progress of her own harrowing journey, piecing it together
using memories, journals, hospital videos and records. Written with
passionate honesty and intelligence, Brain on Fire is a
searingly personal yet universal book, which asks what happens when
your identity is suddenly destroyed, and how you get it back.
'With eagle-eye precision and brutal honesty, Susannah Cahalan turns
her journalistic gaze on herself as she bravely looks back on one of
the most harrowing and unimaginable experiences one could ever face:
the loss of mind, body and self. Brain on Fire is a mesmerizing story'
-Mira Bart k, New York Times bestselling author of The
Memory Palace
Susannah Cahalan is a reporter on the New York Post, and the
recipient of the 2010 Silurian Award of Excellence in Journalism for
Feature Writing. Her writing has also appeared in the New York
Times, and is frequently picked up by the Daily Mail,
Gawker, Gothamist, AOL and Yahoo among
other news aggregrator sites.
Susannah Cahalan is a reporter on the
New York Post
, and the recipient of the 2010 Silurian Award of Excellence in
Journalism for Feature Writing. Her writing has also appeared in the
New York Times
, and is frequently picked up by the
Daily Mail
,
Gawker
,
Gothamist
,
AOL
and
Yahoo
among other news aggregrator sites.
