Brain on Fire

September 24, 2012
In 2009, Cahalan was in a serious relationship and her career as a reporter at the New York Post was taking off. But suddenly, as she tells it in this engaging memoir, she began suffering from a bizarre amalgam of debilitating symptoms including memory loss, paranoia, and severe psychosis that left her in a catatonic state that moved her close to death. Physicians remained baffled until one extraordinary doctor determined that Cahalan was “in the grip of some kind of autoimmune disease.” Released from the hospital after 28 days, she had no memory of her stay there. DVDs recorded in the hospital were the only link she had to her startling condition. “Without this electronic evidence, I could never have imagined myself capable of such madness and misery,” she writes. Focusing her journalistic toolbox on her story, Cahalan untangles the medical mystery surrounding her condition. She is dogged by one question: “How many other people throughout history suffered from my disease and others like it but went untreated? The question is made more pressing by the knowledge that even though the disease was discovered in 2007, some doctors I spoke to believe that it’s been around at least as long as humanity has.” A fast-paced and well-researched trek through a medical mystery to a hard-won recovery.

November 1, 2012

New York Post reporter Cahalan details the madness that briefly robbed her of her independence and ability to write. At first, the author's erratic behavior seemed symptomatic of overwork. Soon, her lack of physical control and frightening, self-destructive behavior became impossible to ignore. Following a string of misdiagnoses, a top neurologist recognized a then newly discovered autoimmune condition called anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis. With the help of her doctor and supportive family and boyfriend, Cahalan recovered and was back at work within a year. Though more journalistic in tone, the book parallels Sylvia Plath's literary classic The Bell Jar. VERDICT A compelling, quick read with a moving message. Cahalan's hip writing style, sympathetic characters, and suspenseful story will appeal to fans of medical thrillers and the television show House. Brief, informative biology and abnormal psychology discussions throughout the text will interest science students without slowing the narrative. Because Cahalan's condition is rare and its causes unknown, this book may save lives and promote empathy for those struggling with mental illness. [See Prepub Alert, 5/20/12.]--Chrissy Spallone, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Lib.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2012
A young journalist's descent into her own baffling medical mystery. In her debut memoir, New York Post reporter Cahalan recounts her struggle to understand an unremembered month lost to illness. Cobbled together from interviews, medical records, notebooks, journals and video footage, the author conjures the traumatic memories of her harrowing ordeal. What began as numbness in her hands and feet soon grew into something more serious, climaxing in a terrifying seizure witnessed by her boyfriend. "My arms suddenly whipped straight out in front of me, like a mummy," she writes, "as my eyes rolled back and my body stiffened....Blood and foam began to spurt out of my mouth through clenched teeth." The mystery thickened as doctors struggled to agree on a diagnosis. While the uncertainty proved maddening for her family members, however, it was also what bonded them together. Cahalan's estranged parents, in particular, found a common purpose as a result of their daughter's plight, putting her health before old hardships. After numerous tests revealed nothing, an observed increase of white blood cells in her cerebrospinal fluid eventually clued in medical professionals. Diagnosed with anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis--a rare autoimmune disease with a cure--Cahalan and her family embarked on the long, hard road to recovery. Through the lonesomeness of her illness, a community emerged, the members of which were dedicated to returning the author to her former life as a beloved daughter, sister, lover and friend. A valiant attempt to recount a mostly forgotten experience, though the many questions that remain may prove frustrating to some readers.

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June 15, 2012

At age 24, New York Post reporter Cahalan was successfully launching a career and a first serious relationship when she entered a month of intensive violent and psychotic episodes that she does not remember even now. After $1 million worth of tests, the doctors were preparing to place her in a psychiatric ward when Dr. Souhel Najjar joined her team and diagnosed a newly discovered autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the brain. Cahalan's doctors now think that this disease may explain instances of presumed demonic possession throughout history. Meanwhile, herself again, Cahalan nervily reports this extraordinary experience. A big BEA buzz book.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2012
In this fascinating memoir by a young New York Post reporter previously known for going undercover as a stripper and writing a butt-implant story headlined Rear and Present Danger, Cahalan describes how she crossed the line between sanity and insanity after an unknown pathogen invaded her body and caused an autoimmune reaction that jump-started brain inflammation, paranoia, and seizures. Her divorced parents put aside their differences and rose to the occasion, sitting by her during the month she was confined to the hospital, about which she remembers nothing. Her boyfriend stayed with her, and one wonderful doctor, noticing that she walked and talked like a late-stage Alzheimer's patient, was determined to get to the bottom of her medical mystery. Luckily, she was insured, because her treatment cost $1 million. Cahalan expertly weaves together her own story and relevant scientific and medical information about autoimmune diseases, which are about two-thirds environmental and one-third genetic in origin. So, she writes, an external trigger, such as a sneeze or a toxic apartment, probably combined with a genetic predisposition toward developing aggressive antibodies to create her problem. A compelling health story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)