She acknowledges using help from other sources since she has little to no memory of many of the happenings recounted in the book. Cahalan describes the book as a memoir, but she also says that it reportage. Evaluate and discuss the style and genre of Brain on Fire. A quote from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche appears at both the beginning and end of Cahalan’s memoir: “The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to.” Why do you think Cahalan chooses to recall this quotation at both the story’s start and end? How does it correspond to Cahalan’s tale and its major themes? In addition to the content of the quotation, why is it particularly poignant that the author would choose a quote by Nietzsche to bookend her work?Ģ. “A fascinating look at the disease that…could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life” ( People), Brain on Fire is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance that is destined to become a classic.ġ. In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. 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.An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity. 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. a mesmerizing story', Mira Bartók, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Palace '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. 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. 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. 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. 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. This 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. Everything she had taken for granted about her life, and who she was, was wiped out. 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. Then one day she woke up in hospital, with no memory of what had happened or how she had got there. Susannah Cahalan was a happy, clever, healthy twenty-four-year old. Though I would have moments of lucidity over the coming days and weeks, I would never again be the same person. 'My first serious blackout marked the line between sanity and insanity. Brain on Fire is the stunning debut from journalist and author Susannah Cahalan, recounting the real-life horror story of how a sudden and mysterious illness put her on descent into a madness for which there seemed to be no cure
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