From Powells.com
Staff Pick
Dittrich uses Patient H.M. to investigate both the life of the titular patient and the morality of his treatment at the hands of researchers. He exposes sides of a well-known case that will appeal to the already familiar as well as newcomers interested in mental illness and the brain. Recommended By Ashleigh B., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
For readers of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks comes a propulsive, haunting journey into the secret history of brain science by Luke Dittrich, whose grandfather performed the surgery that created the most studied human research subject of all time: the amnesic known as Patient H.M.
"Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King in a piercing study of one of psychiatric medicine’s darker hours....A mesmerizing, maddening story and a model of journalistic investigation." — Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
In 1953, a twenty-seven-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison—who suffered from severe epilepsy—received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry’s seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next sixty years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today.
Patient H.M. is, at times, a deeply personal journey. Dittrich’s grandfather was the brilliant, morally complex surgeon who operated on Molaison—and thousands of other patients. The author’s investigation into the dark roots of modern memory science ultimately forces him to confront unsettling secrets in his own family history, and to reveal the tragedy that fueled his grandfather’s relentless experimentation—experimentation that would revolutionize our understanding of ourselves.
Dittrich uses the case of Patient H.M. as a starting point for a kaleidoscopic journey, one that moves from the first recorded brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the cutting-edge laboratories of MIT. He takes readers inside the old asylums and operating theaters where psychosurgeons, as they called themselves, conducted their human experiments, and behind the scenes of a bitter custody battle over the ownership of the most important brain in the world.
Patient H.M. combines the best of biography, memoir, and science journalism to create a haunting, endlessly fascinating story, one that reveals the wondrous and devastating things that can happen when hubris, ambition, and human imperfection collide.
Review
"It felt as if I read this book in one breath. Patient H.M. is a fascinating, powerful investigation, a matryoshka doll of nested stories about the past and present, remembering and forgetting." Michael Paterniti, author of The Telling Room
Review
"This book succeeds on every level: as a fresh look at the most famous patient in medical history, as an exposé of our dark history of psychiatry and neurosurgery, and, most powerfully, as a deeply personal investigation into the author’s past. And yet it’s still a page-turner that reads like a thriller." Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire
Review
"Dittrich explores the limits of science and the mind. In the process, he rescues an iconic life from oblivion. Dittrich is well aware that while we are the sum of what we may remember, we’re also at the mercy of what we can forget. This is classic reporting and myth-making at the same time." Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin
Review
"Patient H.M. tells one of the most fascinating and disturbing stories in the annals of medicine, weaving in ethics, philosophy, a personal saga, the history of neurosurgery, the mysteries of human memory, and an exploration of human ego." Sheri Fink, M.D., Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Five Days at Memorial
About the Author
Luke Dittrich is a National Magazine Award–winning journalist, and a contributing editor at Esquire. This is his first book.
Luke Dittrich on PowellsBooks.Blog
I remember rummaging in the archives of an old asylum, digging through boxes full of dusty documents. I found the asylum's surgical logbook at the bottom of one of the boxes, fished it out, cracked it open, scanned through the lists of experimental lobotomies. Hundreds of them, a relentless stream of attempts to cure madness...
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