Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath

Mason, Michael Paul

ISBN 10: 0374134529 / ISBN 13: 9780374134525

Editore: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008

Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. "Head Cases "takes us into the dark side of the brain in an astonishing sequence of stories, at once true and strange, from the world of brain damage. Michael Paul Mason is one of an elite group of experts who coordinate care in the complicated aftermath of tragic injuries that can last a lifetime. On the road with Mason, we encounter survivors of brain injuries as they struggle to map and make sense of the new worlds they inhabit.Underlying each of these survivors' stories is an exploration of the brain and its mysteries. When injured, the brain must figure out how to heal itself, reorganizing its physiology in order to do the job. Mason gives us a series of vivid glimpses into brain science, the last frontier of medicine, and we come away in awe of the miracles of the brain's workings and astonished at the fragility of the brain and the sense of self, life, and order that resides there. "Head Cases "[achieves] through sympathy and curiosity insight like that which pulses through genuine literature" ("The New York Sun"); it is at once illuminating and deeply affecting. Codice articolo 387808

Riassunto:

Head Cases takes us into the dark side of the brain in an astonishing sequence of stories, at once true and strange, from the world of brain injury.



Michael Paul Mason is one of an elite group of experts who appear in the wake of tragic accidents and coordinate care that can last a lifetime. On the road with Mason, we encounter survivors of brain injuries as they struggle to map and make sense of the new worlds they inhabit. We meet a snowboarder whose life became permanently surreal after an errant jump; an "ultraviolent" child who has lost the brain's instinctive check on the impulse to strike out at others; a young man who cannot cry; and an Iraq war veteran whose odd maladies suggest that brain injury will be the war's most conspicuous legacy.



Underlying each of their stories is an exploration into the brain and its mysteries. When injured, the brain must figure out how to heal itself, reorganizing its physiology in order to do the job, and Mason gives us a series of vivid glimpses into brain science, the last frontier of medicine. We come away in awe of the miracles of the brain's workings and astonished at the fragility of the brain and the sense of self, life, and order that resides there. Head Cases echoes both Oliver Sacks and Raymond Carver, and is at once illuminating and deeply affecting.

Informazioni sugli autori:

Michael Paul Mason, born in 1971, is a brain injury case manager based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

MICHAEL MASON (born 1971) is a brain injury case manager based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its ...
Casa editrice: Farrar Straus Giroux
Data di pubblicazione: 2008
Legatura: Hardcover