The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars: A Neuropsychologist's Odyssey

Description

An audacious and beautiful account of grief and who we are. Memoir, neuroscience and myth interweave to create a book unlike any other A man's wife dies. What next? The next day is next, and the next, and so on. He smothers his sorrow and gets on with the days. He's a Stoic. Tranquillity is the goal, but his brain won't rest. As a neuropsychologist he has spent a career trying to fathom the human brain but now, he comes to realize, his brain is struggling to make sense of him - probing, doubting, reconstructing. Combining neurological case stories and memoir, and with excursions into speculative fiction and mythology, this is an audaciously original, deeply personal meditation on grief, time and selfhood.

Paul Broks is a clinical neuropsychologist-turned-writer. His first book, Into the Silent Land, a collection of case stories and short fictions, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. He has also written for theatre, radio and film, as well as contributing columns for The Times and Prospect magazine.

[A] beautifully written investigation of grief ... As an exploration of love and loss, as a portrait of a person and of the nature of personhood, this book is about as true as any I have read -- James McConnachie * Sunday Times * A wonderful, strange and genre-defying book -- Adam Zerman * Standpoint * A rewarding mind to spend some time with -- David Aaronovitch * The Times * The Darker the Night, The Brighter the Stars is a work of extraordinary insight and imagination. Broks is a 21st century Dante of the human psyche, guiding us on a journey full of surprise, erudition, and wit -- David George Haskell * author of The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees * In this gorgeous kaleidoscope of a book, the neuroscientist Paul Broks takes us image by image, story by story, into an exploration of life with all its brilliant hues of grief and despair, joy and resilience, biology and society. There's science here, and curiosity, and humanity, all forming a remarkable portrait of who we are - and who we hope to be -- Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist * author of The Poisoner's Handbook * Broks weaves many threads - memoir, neuroscience, and metaphysics - into a rich fabric of reflection, speculation and deep feeling. This is a work that defies categorization, fusing non-fiction and imagination into a single instrument of piercing insight and emotional honesty -- Charles Yu * author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe * Truly remarkable prose . . . Throughout, Broks is like a naturalist taking you through the wilderness of the human mind, and he's a companionable guide. -- Eben Schwartz * The Journal of the American Medical Association *