The best minds: a story of friendship, madness, and the tragedy of good intentions
Jonathan Rosen
- Resource Type:
- E-Book
- Publication:
- New York : Penguin Press, 2023
- Copyright:
- ©2023
More Details
- Summary:
- "When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor seemed destined to become inseparable. The boys, both children of college professors, grew up on the same street in intellectually vibrant homes shaped by ideas, liberal Jewish culture, the trauma of the Holocaust, and a shared love of basketball and standup comedy. But the two best friends were also keen competitors bearing the same great expectations, and when Michael and Jonathan both got into Yale, they seemed set to ascend to the heights of the American meritocratic elite. Leaving Jonathan behind, Michael blazed through college in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job for far more money than their parents had ever made. But all wasn't as it seemed. One day, Jonathan received the fateful call: Michael had suffered a serious psychotic break and was institutionalized at a New York City psychiatric hospital where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He would stay there for nine months before transitioning to a halfway house. Facing the prospect of a life spent bagging groceries, Michael decided to play the one card left to him: just before his break, he had been accepted to Yale Law School, and now, against all odds, he planned to enroll. Still struggling mightily with schizophrenia, Michael made it through the top law school in the country. His extraordinary story soon made the front page of the New York Times; an agent sold his memoir to a major publisher for a large sum; Ron Howard swept in to acquire film rights, with Brad Pitt set to star. It was all a dream come true for Michael and his tirelessly supportive girlfriend Carrie. But then, the unimaginable happened: in the grip of an unshakeable paranoid fantasy, Michael stabbed Carrie to death with a kitchen knife. To this day, Michael Laudor remains confined to a maximum-security forensic hospital in upstate New York. The Best Minds is Jonathan Rosen's brilliant and heartbreaking account of what happened to Michael Laudor, and why. Exploring the dramatic transformation of American culture and of society's relationship to mental illness in the second half of the twentieth century, this is a story about the power and limits of the bonds of family, friendship, and community, the lure of the American dream and the promise of academic achievement. At times tender and hilarious, and at times harrowing and almost unbearably sad, The Best Minds is an extreme version of a story that is tragically familiar to all too many. In the hands of a writer of Jonathan Rosen's gifts and dedication, its significance will echo widely"-- [Provided by publisher]
- Table of Contents:
- Machine generated contents note: pt. I House on Mereland Road
- ch. One Suitable Playmate
- ch. Two Good Earth
- ch. Three Memory Glass
- ch. Four Strangers
- ch. Five American Pie
- ch. Six Freedom Summer
- ch. Seven Message In A Bottle
- ch. Eight Misreading
- pt. II House Of Psychiatry
- ch. Nine Shadow Knows
- ch. Ten Revolving Door
- ch. Eleven Going Sane
- ch. Twelve Stories
- ch. Thirteen Choosing
- ch. Fourteen Break
- ch. Fifteen Entanglement
- ch. Sixteen Locked Ward
- ch. Seventeen Making Illness A Weapon
- ch. Eighteen Underclass
- ch. Nineteen Halfway
- pt. III House Of Law
- ch. Twenty Brains
- ch. Twenty-One Mentors
- ch. Twenty-Two Precedent
- ch. Twenty-Three Secrets
- ch. Twenty-Four Sympathetic Light Of Sickness
- ch. Twenty-Five Happy Idiot
- ch. Twenty-Six Postdoc
- ch. Twenty-Seven Thoughtful Enabling
- ch. Twenty-Eight Career Killer
- pt. IV House Of Dreams
- ch. Twenty-Nine Role Model
- ch. Thirty Twice Born
- ch. Thirty-One Creativity, Inc.
- ch. Thirty-Two Michael Called Kevin
- ch. Thirty-Three Shamans
- ch. Thirty-Four Equal Opportunity
- ch. Thirty-Five Backward Journey
- ch. Thirty-Six Two Adams
- ch. Thirty-Seven Personal Emergency
- ch. Thirty-Eight Going Back
- ch. Thirty-Nine Fatal Funnel
- ch. Forty Cain And Abel
- ch. Forty-One Eternal Optimist
- ch. Forty-Two Endings.
- Author/Creator:
- Rosen, Jonathan, 1963- , author
- Languages:
- English
- Language Notes:
- Item content: English
- Main Work:
- Other Related Resources:
- Print version: Best minds [by Rosen, J.] (New York : Penguin Press, 2023 — ISBN 9781594206573; LCCN 2022038816)
- Subjects:
- General Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 25, 2023). - Physical Description:
- 1 online resource
- Call Numbers:
- RC514 .R6467 2023eb
- ISBNs:
- 9780698196520 (electronic book)
069819652X (electronic book)
9781802063264 (electronic book)
1802063269 (electronic book)
9781594206573 (hardcover) [Invalid]
9780241647448 (hardcover) [Invalid] - Library of Congress Control Numbers:
- 2022038817
- OCLC Numbers:
- 1357154753
- Other Control Numbers:
- 3337338 (source: EbpS)
[Unknown Type]: ybp304803092