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The Shaking Woman Or A History Of My Nerves
Siri Hustvedt
Henry Holt and Co.
March 2010
On Sale: March 2, 2010
224 pages
ISBN: 0805091696
EAN: 9780805091694
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In this unique neurological memoir Siri Hustvedt attempts to
solve her own mysterious conditionWhile speaking at a
memorial event for her father in 2006, Siri Hustvedt
suffered a violent seizure from the neck down. Despite her
flapping arms and shaking legs, she continued to speak
clearly and was able to finish her speech. It was as if she
had suddenly become two people: a calm orator and a
shuddering wreck. Then the seizures happened again and
again. The Shaking Woman tracks Hustvedt’s search for a
diagnosis, one that takes her inside the thought processes
of several scientific disciplines, each one of which offers
a distinct perspective on her paroxysms but no ready
solution. In the process, she finds herself entangled in
fundamental questions: What is the relationship between
brain and mind? How do we remember? What is the self? During
her investigations, Hustvedt joins a discussion group in
which neurologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and brain
scientists trade ideas to develop a new field:
neuropsychoanalysis. She volunteers as a writing teacher for
psychiatric in-patients at the Payne Whitney clinic in New
York City and unearths precedents in medical history that
illuminate the origins of and shifts in our theories about
the mind-body problem. In The Shaking Woman, Hustvedt
synthesizes her experience and research into a compelling
mystery: Who is the shaking woman? In the end, the story she
tells becomes, in the words of George Makari, author of
Revolution in Mind, “a brilliant illumination for us all.”
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