A Mind Unraveled: A Memoir

An epilepsy sufferer finds treatment almost as dangerous as his ailment in this gripping memoir. Newsweek writer Eichenwald (The Informant) recounts his struggle from the age of 18 with grand mal epileptic seizures that made him lose consciousness and collapse into convulsions, leaving him disoriented and amnesiac when he came to, not knowing where he was or how he got there. The seizures’ onset inaugurated a terrifying years-long period that had him waking up in emergency rooms, under a snowdrift, on a subway platform being beaten by hoodlums, or bleeding profusely after he was raped while unconscious. Overshadowing the epilepsy, he writes, was bad treatment from arrogant, incompetent doctors who almost killed him with toxic doses of anticonvulsant medications or absurdly misdiagnosed him with a mental illness. The author also battled stigma and discrimination, facing a protracted campaign by Swarthmore College to expel him because of his seizures and, as he started his journalism career in the 1980s, the near impossibility of getting health insurance. Meticulous but passionate, Eichenwald’s narrative is a suspenseful medical thriller about a condition that makes everyday life a mine field, a fierce indictment of a callous medical establishment, and an against-the-odds recovery saga. The result is a terrific memoir with a stinging critique of health care gone awry. (Oct.)