The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen - #bookreview

 

I am going back fifty years. Before the lurid headlines, the Hollywood deal, the publishing contract and The New York Times profile of the role model genius who finished Yale Law School against all odds. Before delusions mistaken for stories, and stories mistaken for life. Before the fancy clothes you bought for management consulting and wore into the hospital, the halfway house, and the Gatsby House you guarded with a baseball bat against enemies disguised as friends and family, guarded in turn by beloved neighbors.

I am going back to the time before you graduated from Yale... Before high school, where you ran while I was beaten and the horror twenty years later when it was my turn to run.

***

When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle, New York in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of professors, the boys were best friends and fierce rivals who soon followed each other to Yale University.

Michael blazed through Yale in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. Then one day, Jonathan received a devastating call: Michael had suffered a psychotic break and was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Michael was still in hospital when he learned he'd been accepted to Yale Law School, and living in a halfway house when he decided, against all odds, to enroll. Still battling delusions, he managed to graduate, and after his triumphant story was featured in The New York Times, sold a memoir for a vast sum. Ron Howard bought film rights, completing the dream for Michael and his tirelessly supportive girlfriend Carrie, and Brad Pitt was set to star. But then Michael, in the grip of psychosis, committed a horrific act that made him a front-page story of an entirely different sort.

The Best Minds is Jonathan Rosen's powerful account of an American tragedy, set in the final decades of the American century, an era that coincided with the emptying out of state mental hospitals. It is a story about the bonds of friendship, the price of delusion and the mystery of identity. Tender, funny, and harrowing by turns, The Best Minds is both a beautifully rendered coming of age story and an indictment of the profound neglect of mental illness in our society.

***

Usually, I write my review of a book as soon as I have finished it. However, with this book I have had to leave it a few days in order to process the impact it has had on me.

It is extraordinarily powerful and was well worth reading through it's 500 plus pages. It wasn't an easy read. In fact, there were times I found it devastatingly sad and heartbreaking. That said, I am extremely glad that I read it.

Mr. Rosen writes of his childhood friends diagnosis of schizophrenia and his psychotic downward spiral was devastating and it's impact on those around him tragic. He presents an unflinchingly straight forward and compassionate observation of the mental health system in the US with honesty and candour.

He portrays the fine line between genius and madness; not un unfamiliar trope in novels. However, this is not a novel - it is a factual account and an outstandingly written one. There are few books which I would describe as unforgettable but this is one such book. It will stay with me for a long time.

This is not my usual style of review. There is no place here for commenting on characterization, setting or plot. That only leaves me with encouraging you to read this exceptional book for yourselves.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

ISBN: 978 0241647448

Publisher: Allen Lane

Formats: e-book, audio and hardback

No. of Pages:  576 (hardback)

Purchase from Bookshop.org* 

About the Author:

Jonathan Rosen is the author of two novels: Eve's Apple and Joy Comes in the Morning, and two non-fiction books: The Talmud and the Internet

and The Life of the Skies. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and numerous anthologies. He lives with his family in New York City.

(ARC and author bio info courtesy of the publisher)

(author photo courtesy of The Guardian)

*Disclosure: I only recommend books I would buy myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains an affiliate link from which I may earn a small commission.