The Brand New Catastrophe: A Memoir

by Mike Scalise

“A very funny [memoir] about the frailties of the flesh, the absurdities of modern medicine, and how to stay sane amid it all” (Dave Eggers).   Raucous family memoir meets medical adventure in this “winning literary debut” that explores the public and private theaters of illness (The New York Times Book Review).   After a pituitary tumor bursts in Mike Scalise’s brain (diagnosed, by of all people a physician named Dr. Sunshine), it leaves him with a hole in head, and the hormone disorder acromegaly at age twenty-four. He also faces the exasperating challenge of navigating a new, alien world of illness maintenance among family, friends, and spouse. However, it’s his mother, who has a chronic heart condition and a flair for drama, who becomes a complicated model as she competes with her son for the status of “best sick person.”   “Captur[ing] all the fright of a medical calamity and the humor and grace necessary to survive it (Kirkus Reviews), “Mike Scalise’s startling and slyly hilarious memoir is a heartfelt reminder of how astonishing, how terrifying, how absurd it is to be a body. An essential book for those who’ve lived through catastrophe, or only imagined it” (Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine).

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Health, Medical, Biography Memoir, Audiobook

317 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 31, 2017

About the author

Mike Scalise is the author of THE BRAND NEW CATASTROPHE (Sarabande Books, 2017), which received the 2014 Christopher Doheny Prize from the Center for Fiction. His work has appeared in publications like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Paris Review, Agni, and a few others. Mike has received awards, fellowships, and scholarships from Yaddo, Bread Loaf, Ucross, and was the Philip Roth Writer In Residence at Bucknell University a while back.