Raised in Miami during the 1950s and now a law professor at a California university, Elyn Saks holds degrees in law and has specialized in philosophy and psychology. She is a member of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society (and her credentials and honors extend well beyond this), happily married, a survivor of aneurysm and cancer—and above all, someone living with severe schizophrenia, which she revealed to the world in 2007 with this book. How could you not be drawn to read such an autobiography?
The author describes her mental illness with remarkable clarity and optimism—to borrow the words of the renowned neurologist and psychologist Oliver Sacks. Without major family trauma, schizophrenia creeps in like a fog during her adolescence, unrecognized at first. In college, neglect of self-care and then delusional episodes lead young Elyn to involuntary hospitalizations, restraints, and forced treatments. The journey is long: it passes through the agonizing acceptance of medication and a diagnosis that threatens to define and disable her, through precious and decisive friendships, through the undeniable brilliance of her mind, and through vital relationships with her therapists. A friend who knows her well offers a fitting judgment: a woman truly fortunate in her misfortune.
The book dismantles many prejudices, chief among them the assumption that people with mental illness are inevitably violent toward others—the only ones who make the news. The translation, unfortunately, is uneven, starting with the title.
Cristina Tersigni, 2013