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The Answer to the Riddle Is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia
“A deeply moving account of amnesia that . . . reminds us how we are all always trying to find a version of ourselves that we can live with.” — Los Angeles Times
On October 17, 2002, David MacLean “woke up” on a train platform in India with no idea who he was or why he was there. No money. No passport. No identity.
Taken to a mental hospital by the police, MacLean then started to hallucinate so severely he had to be tied down. He could remember song lyrics, but not his family, his friends, or the woman he was told he loved. The illness, it turned out, was the result of a commonly prescribed antimalarial medication he had been taking. Upon his return to the United States, he struggled to piece together the fragments of his former life.
In this “mesmerizing, unsettling memoir about the ever-echoing nature of identity—written in vivid, blooming detail,” he tells the harrowing, absurd, and unforgettable story of his journey back to himself (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl ).
“[MacLean] is an exceedingly entertaining psychotic. . . . [A] raw, honest and beautiful memoir.” — The New York Times
“If bad things are going to happen, we are lucky when they happen to someone with the wit, humanity and sweetness—to say nothing of an eye for detail and a gift for pacing—that MacLean brings to this wrenching tale. . . . Readers who flip open the book will find MacLean, preserved between pages, goofy and serious, lost and found.” — Chicago Tribune
“[MacLean] writes eloquently about the bizarre and disturbing experience of having his sense of self erased and then reconstructed from scratch.” — The New Yorker
On October 17, 2002, David MacLean “woke up” on a train platform in India with no idea who he was or why he was there. No money. No passport. No identity.
Taken to a mental hospital by the police, MacLean then started to hallucinate so severely he had to be tied down. He could remember song lyrics, but not his family, his friends, or the woman he was told he loved. The illness, it turned out, was the result of a commonly prescribed antimalarial medication he had been taking. Upon his return to the United States, he struggled to piece together the fragments of his former life.
In this “mesmerizing, unsettling memoir about the ever-echoing nature of identity—written in vivid, blooming detail,” he tells the harrowing, absurd, and unforgettable story of his journey back to himself (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl ).
“[MacLean] is an exceedingly entertaining psychotic. . . . [A] raw, honest and beautiful memoir.” — The New York Times
“If bad things are going to happen, we are lucky when they happen to someone with the wit, humanity and sweetness—to say nothing of an eye for detail and a gift for pacing—that MacLean brings to this wrenching tale. . . . Readers who flip open the book will find MacLean, preserved between pages, goofy and serious, lost and found.” — Chicago Tribune
“[MacLean] writes eloquently about the bizarre and disturbing experience of having his sense of self erased and then reconstructed from scratch.” — The New Yorker
305 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 14, 2014
103 people are currently reading
3261 people want to read
About the author
David Stuart MacLean
2 books31 followersDAVID STUART MACLEAN is a Pen/American award-winning writer. His work has appeared in Ploughshares and on the radio program This American Life. He has a PhD from the University of Houston and is a co-founder of the Poison Pen Reading Series. He lives in Chicago with his wife.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 256 reviews
December 26, 2013
The discussion notes that come with the review copy of this book point point out that "a memoir of amnesia" is a contradiction, and this is, in fact, David MacLean's memoir of recovering from amnesia. It could also be classified as an adventure tale, traveling through India, through mental illness and depression, through complicated relationships and through the many phases of identity. In all of that, MacLean does a great job of balancing difficult subject matter with humor and candor. He's honest and often funny, but not afraid to discuss suicidal thoughts and some pretty intense demons.
The writing style is engaging -- short chapters give snapshots of the story and act (perhaps) as an example of the experience of sporadically-recovered memory. MacLean also is skilled at knowing what of the convoluted story to tell and what to leave out. Many memoirs get hung up on telling everything, as it happened, in a linear style. They get bogged down in detail. "The Answer to the Riddle is Me" is told with a light touch and moves along quickly. There are a few more academic sections on the development and use of the medicine Larium. They're pretty short, too, though might drag a bit for some readers. I've concluded that those sections are helpful for making sense of MacLean's illness. And since I took Larium myself in the '90s (no negative side effects other than headaches), it was interesting (and terrifying) to learn more about the drug.
Overall, a strong book and a captivating read with a wider audience than the subject matter might initially suggest.
The writing style is engaging -- short chapters give snapshots of the story and act (perhaps) as an example of the experience of sporadically-recovered memory. MacLean also is skilled at knowing what of the convoluted story to tell and what to leave out. Many memoirs get hung up on telling everything, as it happened, in a linear style. They get bogged down in detail. "The Answer to the Riddle is Me" is told with a light touch and moves along quickly. There are a few more academic sections on the development and use of the medicine Larium. They're pretty short, too, though might drag a bit for some readers. I've concluded that those sections are helpful for making sense of MacLean's illness. And since I took Larium myself in the '90s (no negative side effects other than headaches), it was interesting (and terrifying) to learn more about the drug.
Overall, a strong book and a captivating read with a wider audience than the subject matter might initially suggest.
February 27, 2014
I really enjoyed Mr. MacLean's essay about his struggle with amnesia on This American Life which is why I couldn't wait to read the book. Unfortunately I think the essay was the perfect length for this story. The book was overly long and way way too detailed.
August 10, 2016
Proof positive that doctors and pharmaceutical companies are The Great Satan.
August 14, 2014
Like many, I first heard MacLean's horrifying story of waking up on a train platform in India with no memory of who he was on This American Life. It stuck with me, so when the full-length memoir came out this year, reviewed favorably on the usual circuits, I selected it as a non-fiction pick for my library's book club.
While it does raise interesting points for discussion (what makes you you? Is there some core in each individual that remains after memories and identity have been stripped away? is there truth to MacLean's assertion that memory is a "cultural construct, all of it preshaped by commerce"? and, most importantly: why were prisoners at Guantanamo Bay heavily dosed with the same malarial prophylaxis that sent MacLean into his years-long fugue state, effectively "pharmaceutically waterboarding" them?!), I found the narrator -- the narrator as he exists today, not as he existed before his bout with amnesia -- to be the kind of man you see at parties who gets obnoxiously drunk and stands on the coffee table yelling dumb things until everyone's can't help but pay attention to him. His pre-Lariam pranks seem cruel, and when a woman at a party bluntly tells him he doesn't respect women, I found myself psychically standing behind her, pumping my fist, and saying, "YEAH!"
The frustrating thing about this memoir is that it relies heavily, narratively, on the idea that the author was an immature and selfish person, is wiped more or less completely clean, and struggles to rebuild his post-amnesiac self into a kinder, gentler, new man. But he still seems unlikable, as much post- as pre-, and I couldn't stop thinking of him like that jerky kid in high school who always had the best things, the new car, the summer vacations in Europe, and never even understood how spoiled he was.
The facts of MacLean's ordeal are fascinating, but the memoir lacked any sort of soul. The reader learns all about the effects of Lariam, all about MacLean's cleverness, what it's like to drift in and out of lucidity in an Indian mental institution, but what do we come away with? The author has created an artful, polished diary, but fails to connect his experiences to anything larger than his own existence.
While it does raise interesting points for discussion (what makes you you? Is there some core in each individual that remains after memories and identity have been stripped away? is there truth to MacLean's assertion that memory is a "cultural construct, all of it preshaped by commerce"? and, most importantly: why were prisoners at Guantanamo Bay heavily dosed with the same malarial prophylaxis that sent MacLean into his years-long fugue state, effectively "pharmaceutically waterboarding" them?!), I found the narrator -- the narrator as he exists today, not as he existed before his bout with amnesia -- to be the kind of man you see at parties who gets obnoxiously drunk and stands on the coffee table yelling dumb things until everyone's can't help but pay attention to him. His pre-Lariam pranks seem cruel, and when a woman at a party bluntly tells him he doesn't respect women, I found myself psychically standing behind her, pumping my fist, and saying, "YEAH!"
The frustrating thing about this memoir is that it relies heavily, narratively, on the idea that the author was an immature and selfish person, is wiped more or less completely clean, and struggles to rebuild his post-amnesiac self into a kinder, gentler, new man. But he still seems unlikable, as much post- as pre-, and I couldn't stop thinking of him like that jerky kid in high school who always had the best things, the new car, the summer vacations in Europe, and never even understood how spoiled he was.
The facts of MacLean's ordeal are fascinating, but the memoir lacked any sort of soul. The reader learns all about the effects of Lariam, all about MacLean's cleverness, what it's like to drift in and out of lucidity in an Indian mental institution, but what do we come away with? The author has created an artful, polished diary, but fails to connect his experiences to anything larger than his own existence.
December 16, 2015
There were times I really appreciated what MacLean had to say and times I really didn't want to keep going with it. There were a lot of interesting and captivating moments, but it went from eloquent to whiny pretty often and pretty fast. The book was trying to do too many things at once, and wasn't doing any of them convincingly enough. It wasn't sure if it wanted to be an investigation into the dangers of Lariam, or a personal tale of memory-loss and psychological struggle after taking the drug. Not that a book couldn't be both, but the way he traveled back and forth between tale of personal woe and facts about Lariam didn't quite make sense in terms of the tone and structure of the book. Really what this felt like is an essay, or a few different essays, forced into the form of a memoir. I think he could have easily made the personal story much shorter and gone further with the research into Lariam and written a much better book. I'm not sure if it would have worked as well going in the other direction (more personal history, less Larium).
Here are a few small quotes I liked. There were more I'd post here if I'd written them down.
"The kindness of a place to sleep."
"It felt like a place burrowed deeper into the world."
Here are a few small quotes I liked. There were more I'd post here if I'd written them down.
"The kindness of a place to sleep."
"It felt like a place burrowed deeper into the world."
December 25, 2014
Scary subject nailed in a scarily well-written book. Around page 243 McLean pulls off something extraordinary. He folds seamlessly into his narrative a précis of Alan Moore's powerful story about Superman called "For the Man Who Has Everything," and in so doing bridles a horse that would rather die than be ridden. An amnesiac writer undermines his work if it gets coherent, but after this beautiful authorial move the rest of the book feels coherent AND chaotic all at once. I wonder how many Americans know what their government did with Lariam at Guatanamo Bay or that for years the Army poisoned its soldiers with this malarial prophylactic.
Though this is a non-fiction work, it deals with character and the tricky subjective/objective oscillation that goes on in the human mind more like a novel - a very good novel. McLean is at pains to avoid pretending, and so he can be imaginative in ways that ring true to life as we live it, amnesiac or not. Very highly recommended.
Though this is a non-fiction work, it deals with character and the tricky subjective/objective oscillation that goes on in the human mind more like a novel - a very good novel. McLean is at pains to avoid pretending, and so he can be imaginative in ways that ring true to life as we live it, amnesiac or not. Very highly recommended.
March 30, 2019
A real-life horror story wherein a young man wakes up in India, entirely unable to remember anything about himself or his past. Eventually, we learn that the young man in question is David McLean, who was in India on a Fullbright scholarship and suffered from severe amnesia due to a side effect of an anti-malarial drug he was taking.
In what ensues, serious questions are prompted about the precariousness of identity, and how fragile that thing we call our "self" is. It's an extraordinarily well-written memoir, by turns moving, terrifying, and thought-provoking.
In what ensues, serious questions are prompted about the precariousness of identity, and how fragile that thing we call our "self" is. It's an extraordinarily well-written memoir, by turns moving, terrifying, and thought-provoking.
December 31, 2014
October 17, 2002: MacLean suddenly ‘wakes up’ at a train station in India. He isn’t carrying a passport; he has no idea who he is or why he’s there. Station staff presume he is just another hippie westerner on drugs, or mentally ill.
Well, he was both – though not precisely. The Answer to the Riddle Is Me is MacLean’s quirky account of his temporary amnesia, triggered by anti-malarial drug Lariam. He’d been in India on a Fulbright fellowship, studying languages and planning an experimental novel. Like Su Meck (see below), he had to rebuild his entire identity, learning that he perhaps hadn’t been the most pleasant person: a flippant, deadbeat joker, the kind of person who attended Halloween parties dressed only in saran wrap and aluminum foil. (“You’ve always been unique,” his father said diplomatically. His mother was blunter: “My son, the equal-opportunity jackass.”)
In other words, no one really took MacLean seriously. Yet that meant he could start from scratch, with no one expecting too much of him. Still, his kooky sense of humor is evident here, as in the unexpectedly hilarious scenes in an Indian mental hospital, where he hallucinates that Jim Henson is God and believes repeatedly cursing lentil pancakes – “F—k masala dosa” – will crack the riddle of existence. Bouncing back and forth between India, his family home in Ohio, college in New Mexico, and friends’ and girlfriends’ places in North Carolina and Goa, the memoir depicts, in astonishingly fresh language, a mosaic life as it starts to make sense. He also interweaves the fascinating history of malaria treatment, in sections echoing another great medical-mystery memoir, Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire.
(I feature this book, along with Su Meck’s I Forgot to Remember, in my latest BookTrib article, on amnesia in recent books and films.)
Well, he was both – though not precisely. The Answer to the Riddle Is Me is MacLean’s quirky account of his temporary amnesia, triggered by anti-malarial drug Lariam. He’d been in India on a Fulbright fellowship, studying languages and planning an experimental novel. Like Su Meck (see below), he had to rebuild his entire identity, learning that he perhaps hadn’t been the most pleasant person: a flippant, deadbeat joker, the kind of person who attended Halloween parties dressed only in saran wrap and aluminum foil. (“You’ve always been unique,” his father said diplomatically. His mother was blunter: “My son, the equal-opportunity jackass.”)
In other words, no one really took MacLean seriously. Yet that meant he could start from scratch, with no one expecting too much of him. Still, his kooky sense of humor is evident here, as in the unexpectedly hilarious scenes in an Indian mental hospital, where he hallucinates that Jim Henson is God and believes repeatedly cursing lentil pancakes – “F—k masala dosa” – will crack the riddle of existence. Bouncing back and forth between India, his family home in Ohio, college in New Mexico, and friends’ and girlfriends’ places in North Carolina and Goa, the memoir depicts, in astonishingly fresh language, a mosaic life as it starts to make sense. He also interweaves the fascinating history of malaria treatment, in sections echoing another great medical-mystery memoir, Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire.
(I feature this book, along with Su Meck’s I Forgot to Remember, in my latest BookTrib article, on amnesia in recent books and films.)
April 21, 2023
Audio book was stellar. At first the monotone voice irritated me, but when I realized it was intentional because the protagonist didn’t know who he was or what his purpose was, I found it clever as well as like conversing with someone on the spectrum; many of his struggles also felt like spectrum struggles so I appreciated the matter of fact tone. It also made more clear, the harshness of the realities he was left to unravel. He does not sell the readers. He doesn’t preach the evils of medicine. There is no need for hyperbole. The harrowing experience needs no tone, it stands starkly next to the author, under the sickly glow of the institutionalized halls of medicine. What can cure you can also kill you; or leave you half dead dependent on the “kindness of strangers.” This book is about the twilight between the living and the dead.
May 22, 2014
Of the myriad flavors of memoir available on the market today, the toughest for me to acquire a taste for has been the memoir of trauma. There's a reason for this.
Trauma is a tricky business. A severely traumatized person is caught, like an insect in amber, within the traumatic event itself - doomed, without effective treatment, to re-live his nightmare over and over again until the experience of life becomes one unending plunge into a raw series of adrenalinized fight-or-flight responses. Under such dire emotional circumstances, the distinction between past, present and future - all sense of timeline - comes under attack. There is largely only Now, which is Then, which is what's about to happen; which is bad, very bad, and inescapable. It is this untreated (or insufficiently treated) individual who is often the author of the trauma memoir. Hence what one ends up with, as a reader, is a true story that cannot be told in a legitimately linear fashion. The author cannot travel, psychologically, from A to B to C. For him there is only B, more B, and even more B.
What publishers find publishable about the trauma memoir is the heart-wrenching account of the traumatic event, and this can be provided with great expertise by the traumatized individual. After all, this is the moment he's been re-living to his detriment for several years now. He can describe that nightmarish incident to a tee. What he can't do is relay much of anything else, and that doesn't work as a best-selling book; a truth of which his editor is more than well aware. So nudges are dealt, sharp corners urged into rounding, a great many threads ostensibly tied off; a narrative path through this crisis is essentially fabricated to produce a viable commercial product. Which is false, of course, and unauthentic, and possibly inhumane. And to some of us it shows. To me, it shows.
I offer this rather lengthy preface in order to direct your attention to a trauma memoir whose author (and editor) resisted that course. David Stuart MacLean has written an account of his experience with a case of amnesia caused by the ingestion of a standard anti-malarial medication - and while the amnesia gets its due, he also manages to relay the terrifying traumatic impact of "waking up" in the railway station of a foreign country with no idea where, when, how or who he was. The amnesia eventually began to recede. The trauma, however, held him hostage for years. Honest, engaging, harrowing, inconclusive; this story is all the more amazing for the manner in which it is told. And you're going to need an example of that.
The last time I saw my shrink I made a point not to be smart or clever or knowledgeable about my condition. I wanted to show her that I could learn, that I was cooperative, that I was willing to try it her way. That I was reachable.
I told her about my dreams. I told her about the banal-mares, in which I woke up as other people who were on the clock and waiting for their shifts to end. I told her about waking up as a convenience store worker and the chunk of me that was missing in that dream, and how it made me realize how crazy random it was not just that I was me (the billion sperm to one egg; the insane odds against all my ancestors ever meeting each other), but also how, with the millions of electrical pulses in the brain that were needed to fire every microsecond, it was incredibly random that I continued to be me. I yanked tissues from the box and pushed them into my eyes. I told her that I was tired of having my biggest fear be not being me.
"You know, convenience store workers serve a very important function in the universe," the shrink said.
"I know that," I said, thinking she was missing something. "People need gas. People need cigarettes."
She leaned in close to me and said, "Convenience store workers are the reincarnated souls of people who died in the Holocaust. They need the mundane nature of those jobs to make sense of what happened to them in their previous lives."
"Oh," I said.
And just like that, I wasn't the craziest person in the room anymore.
I highly recommend this memoir. It is very well done.
Trauma is a tricky business. A severely traumatized person is caught, like an insect in amber, within the traumatic event itself - doomed, without effective treatment, to re-live his nightmare over and over again until the experience of life becomes one unending plunge into a raw series of adrenalinized fight-or-flight responses. Under such dire emotional circumstances, the distinction between past, present and future - all sense of timeline - comes under attack. There is largely only Now, which is Then, which is what's about to happen; which is bad, very bad, and inescapable. It is this untreated (or insufficiently treated) individual who is often the author of the trauma memoir. Hence what one ends up with, as a reader, is a true story that cannot be told in a legitimately linear fashion. The author cannot travel, psychologically, from A to B to C. For him there is only B, more B, and even more B.
What publishers find publishable about the trauma memoir is the heart-wrenching account of the traumatic event, and this can be provided with great expertise by the traumatized individual. After all, this is the moment he's been re-living to his detriment for several years now. He can describe that nightmarish incident to a tee. What he can't do is relay much of anything else, and that doesn't work as a best-selling book; a truth of which his editor is more than well aware. So nudges are dealt, sharp corners urged into rounding, a great many threads ostensibly tied off; a narrative path through this crisis is essentially fabricated to produce a viable commercial product. Which is false, of course, and unauthentic, and possibly inhumane. And to some of us it shows. To me, it shows.
I offer this rather lengthy preface in order to direct your attention to a trauma memoir whose author (and editor) resisted that course. David Stuart MacLean has written an account of his experience with a case of amnesia caused by the ingestion of a standard anti-malarial medication - and while the amnesia gets its due, he also manages to relay the terrifying traumatic impact of "waking up" in the railway station of a foreign country with no idea where, when, how or who he was. The amnesia eventually began to recede. The trauma, however, held him hostage for years. Honest, engaging, harrowing, inconclusive; this story is all the more amazing for the manner in which it is told. And you're going to need an example of that.
The last time I saw my shrink I made a point not to be smart or clever or knowledgeable about my condition. I wanted to show her that I could learn, that I was cooperative, that I was willing to try it her way. That I was reachable.
I told her about my dreams. I told her about the banal-mares, in which I woke up as other people who were on the clock and waiting for their shifts to end. I told her about waking up as a convenience store worker and the chunk of me that was missing in that dream, and how it made me realize how crazy random it was not just that I was me (the billion sperm to one egg; the insane odds against all my ancestors ever meeting each other), but also how, with the millions of electrical pulses in the brain that were needed to fire every microsecond, it was incredibly random that I continued to be me. I yanked tissues from the box and pushed them into my eyes. I told her that I was tired of having my biggest fear be not being me.
"You know, convenience store workers serve a very important function in the universe," the shrink said.
"I know that," I said, thinking she was missing something. "People need gas. People need cigarettes."
She leaned in close to me and said, "Convenience store workers are the reincarnated souls of people who died in the Holocaust. They need the mundane nature of those jobs to make sense of what happened to them in their previous lives."
"Oh," I said.
And just like that, I wasn't the craziest person in the room anymore.
I highly recommend this memoir. It is very well done.
March 15, 2014
I heard the author being interviewed on NPR and could hardly wait to get my hands on this book. I really enjoyed reading it. David MacLean had a Fulbright to go to India and study how native people spoke English for a novel he was writing. He intended to do a grammatical analysis of the other languages spoken by Indians and compare the grammatical structures they used in their native tongues to the grammatical structures they used when speaking English. Very intellectual. Unfortunatly, David took Lariam which was prescribed to him to prevent malaria. He had a bad reaction to the medication and lost his memory and his mind. Imagine coming to on a train platform in a foreign country where you don't seem to speak the language and can't read signs and you have no idea who you are. That's David MacLean's book - that and his recovery from the symptoms. It is pretty horrifying but what is really horrifying is that it was known before David took Lariam that this was a possible side effect. Lariam has also been prescribed for American soldiers all over the world. Detainees at Guantanamo Bay have received massive doses of Lariam prior to being questioned in an effort to "soften them up" or not? MacLean says there is no malaria in Cuba so the medication is unnecessary. This was a crazy, chilling book - great for a book club that reads memoirs or nonfiction!
February 25, 2014
I loved The Answer to the Riddle is Me: a Memoir of Amnesia by David Stuart MacLean. Right from chapter 1 I was engaged. Haven’t read a book this addictive in a while. Rather than reiterate the story, I just want to say that I really enjoyed MacLean’s description of his Larium nightmares, his ability to keep us in it all and still have perspective, and his humour in the midst of this nightmare - which sounds like it will be with him for the rest of his life. Having lived and travelled in India a lot, including the years he was there, I know how incredibly lucky he was to have been found by Rajesh/Josh (a Japanese colleague of mine woke up in an alley in Delhi completely stripped of all his ID and most of his clothing). I was relieved and happy for him during his roller-coaster recovery, and wish him all the good luck in the world for the future.
June 1, 2023
This work of non-fiction is more frightening than anything cooked up in the imagination of
Stephen King.
In a nutshell - A healthy, 20-something-year-old man develops what appears to be full blown Schizophrenia after taking an antimalarial drug.
This is truly the stuff of nightmares.
Stephen King.
In a nutshell - A healthy, 20-something-year-old man develops what appears to be full blown Schizophrenia after taking an antimalarial drug.
This is truly the stuff of nightmares.
October 20, 2022
This is a really powerful book, but it isn't over the top and it didn't seem like David Stuart MacLean was trying too hard to make it one. He was simply telling his story. What he went through, however, and what he struggled with was something that, while rare in actual occurrence, speaks to a fundamental question that I think everyone struggles with answering. Who are we really? What defines the person that we are? Our experiences, or the perceptions that others have of us? Or maybe something entirely different. How much control do we have over the person that we are?
The first entry will grab you immediately. You are with David, standing on a train platform in India, and you have no idea who he is or where he is at first. You just know you don't recognize the people around you, and you don't know your name. The way he chose to write this is so effective at accomplishing the concept that we are taking this journey with him, learning things as he learns them. It's gripping, and it will keep you reading.
Once he establishes a basic understanding of his identity, he returns to life and starts trying to rebuild the person he was a mere two or three weeks before. But the task is far from simple, and it's fascinating to see how MacLean draws attention to the issue of what people do when they are mentally unprepared to face a world that is not going to stop and wait for them.
I won't give too much else away because I loved the progression of the book, and I think it's important for you to follow along with it. By the end, I had definitely teared up once or twice, though, and I felt like I had a lot of self reflection that I needed to do for myself. This book will make you think, and it will break your heart a little bit, but it's hopeful as well. Basically, you need to read it.
The first entry will grab you immediately. You are with David, standing on a train platform in India, and you have no idea who he is or where he is at first. You just know you don't recognize the people around you, and you don't know your name. The way he chose to write this is so effective at accomplishing the concept that we are taking this journey with him, learning things as he learns them. It's gripping, and it will keep you reading.
Once he establishes a basic understanding of his identity, he returns to life and starts trying to rebuild the person he was a mere two or three weeks before. But the task is far from simple, and it's fascinating to see how MacLean draws attention to the issue of what people do when they are mentally unprepared to face a world that is not going to stop and wait for them.
I won't give too much else away because I loved the progression of the book, and I think it's important for you to follow along with it. By the end, I had definitely teared up once or twice, though, and I felt like I had a lot of self reflection that I needed to do for myself. This book will make you think, and it will break your heart a little bit, but it's hopeful as well. Basically, you need to read it.
February 26, 2014
I found "The Answer to the Riddle is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia" by David Stuart MacLean both fascinating and terrifying. It was fascinating to be trust into the mind and experiences of someone struggling with amnesia. It was terrifying because his amnesia is most possibly linked to his taking of the Lariam. Lariam is a anti-malaria drug that was prescribed to the Ohio native before and during his trip to India to study under the Fulbright Foundation.
MacLean weaves personal narrative and medical research together detailing the moment he "woke up" completely baffled and not knowing who he was on a train platform in India to the recovery process which took him years. He discusses the history of the creation of the drug Lariam and particularly highlights its use in the US military both for soldiers and for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
It's always an interesting experience reading someone's autobiography or memoir because as the saying goes "hindsight is twenty-twenty". Reading as MacLean seemed to worsen his problems with excessive drinking was awkward. The last chapter of the book is a nice summing up as he discusses the fact "[he] assembled a working self out of the behavior of others" and that he "allowed the people who showed up to define me". I must admit I enjoyed reading this book; however, the disjointed nature of the subject made it a little more of a difficult read or at the very least required more undivided focus. I can see especially the last chapter as being a wonderful jumping off point for the discussion of what actually is identity.
MacLean weaves personal narrative and medical research together detailing the moment he "woke up" completely baffled and not knowing who he was on a train platform in India to the recovery process which took him years. He discusses the history of the creation of the drug Lariam and particularly highlights its use in the US military both for soldiers and for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
It's always an interesting experience reading someone's autobiography or memoir because as the saying goes "hindsight is twenty-twenty". Reading as MacLean seemed to worsen his problems with excessive drinking was awkward. The last chapter of the book is a nice summing up as he discusses the fact "[he] assembled a working self out of the behavior of others" and that he "allowed the people who showed up to define me". I must admit I enjoyed reading this book; however, the disjointed nature of the subject made it a little more of a difficult read or at the very least required more undivided focus. I can see especially the last chapter as being a wonderful jumping off point for the discussion of what actually is identity.
November 27, 2020
This has definitely solidified my resolve to never try drugs. Though resulting from a malaria vaccine, his bad trip in the beginning is just frightening. He describes it so well I feel like I’m living it and you’re able to relate on the level of how random our brain can be with it’s process of imagery and nonsense connections. Like walking into a room and forgetting what you went in their for.
Very informative in some areas like the history and battle against malaria though I often felt like it was just overly detailed in SO many areas. It’s like a long rambling rant of an old man who just wants to reminisce and you can’t even tell what the “life lesson” is. You could take the beginning and the end of the book and that’s it.
I was going to give it 3 stars but then by the end you realize the guys just kind of an asshole. He’s pretentious, doesn’t respect women and by the end still has very little redeeming qualities. I mean the guy goes through this life changing experience and can’t even come up with anything inspiring to write about.
Very informative in some areas like the history and battle against malaria though I often felt like it was just overly detailed in SO many areas. It’s like a long rambling rant of an old man who just wants to reminisce and you can’t even tell what the “life lesson” is. You could take the beginning and the end of the book and that’s it.
I was going to give it 3 stars but then by the end you realize the guys just kind of an asshole. He’s pretentious, doesn’t respect women and by the end still has very little redeeming qualities. I mean the guy goes through this life changing experience and can’t even come up with anything inspiring to write about.
February 2, 2014
Everybody has discussed in their reviews the basis of this book, so I won't belabor that. What really resonates with me are these things:
Why is Lariam still allowed to be used as an anti-malarial drug?
Why does the US government use it on every prisoner in Guantanamo? (Is MacLean's accusation of "chemical water boarding" correct?)
Why is it routinely given to soldiers serving in areas where malaria is prevalent, even though there are drugs that would work that don't have the serious side effects that Lariam has?
My daughter-in-law went to India. Thank God that wasn't the drug she was prescribed, because evidently it's just luck.
And, finally, who are we? Are we really just a composite of who other people think we are?
Great book, lots to think about,
Why is Lariam still allowed to be used as an anti-malarial drug?
Why does the US government use it on every prisoner in Guantanamo? (Is MacLean's accusation of "chemical water boarding" correct?)
Why is it routinely given to soldiers serving in areas where malaria is prevalent, even though there are drugs that would work that don't have the serious side effects that Lariam has?
My daughter-in-law went to India. Thank God that wasn't the drug she was prescribed, because evidently it's just luck.
And, finally, who are we? Are we really just a composite of who other people think we are?
Great book, lots to think about,
April 17, 2019
I think everyone who likes NF, should give this one a try, just for it's mind-blowing premise.
June 15, 2025
This was an incredible story. I wish it was longer, partially because it was such a joy to read, and partially because of the selfish need to have everything wrapped up in a pretty little bow. But the reality of David’s story is so far from that. I really appreciated the few chapters about the pharmacological science and history of Larium, it added great context. I wish I could say I’m surprised that we’ve been so willingly poisoning our soldiers and corps workers. The Guantanamo Bay anecdote was particularly chilling. Other chapters, describing the long and flat months of depression, contain probably the best description of the feeling that I’ve ever read. In a way that I don’t particularly like. It’s not a flowery or romanticized telling, but a gross, honest, and hopelessly accurate one. A memoir of amnesia raises questions about inherent pain and personality, and their relationship with memory. How much of who we are is shaped by experience? Who would I be if everything I knew about myself was stripped away?
Really well done, I can highly recommend this book!!!
Really well done, I can highly recommend this book!!!
May 19, 2025
Wow.
how do we know who we are? is it based on the stories we tell of ourselves to ourselves... or the stories others tell us about ourselves? do we become the stories? what if there is no story, just unblemished pages waiting to be filled? how do we fill the pages? chasing whims, laying plans? doing what we *think* we should do, or what others expect us to do based on some past version of the self?
majestically written to inspire self reflection and thought.
how do we know who we are? is it based on the stories we tell of ourselves to ourselves... or the stories others tell us about ourselves? do we become the stories? what if there is no story, just unblemished pages waiting to be filled? how do we fill the pages? chasing whims, laying plans? doing what we *think* we should do, or what others expect us to do based on some past version of the self?
majestically written to inspire self reflection and thought.
May 8, 2021
I probably heard about this on a podcast or something and thought it sounded interesting. Its about a guy who had a terrible reaction to some anti-malarial medication. And while it does sound truly horrifying, reading this reminded me of listening to someone go on too long about the specifics of their medical history. I failed to find any life lessons, inspiration or humor in this tale.
April 7, 2018
I really enjoyed this book. It did seem to sag in the middle a little as my interest waned but overall I loved the cringing honesty.
April 25, 2018
Meh, just not my cup of tea. Nothing specifically wrong, just couldn't really get into it, something about the author's voice.
June 21, 2014
Starts out with a bang. Our man wakes up a strange city, with no memory of who he is or why he’s there or why he has a woman’s underwear. After a false start or two, a compassionate civil society more or less gets him sorted and home, which he does not recognize.
As a stranger in a strange land with known diseases, he was taking a drug called Lariam to avoid malaria. Lariam is a miracle drug. It vastly decreases the chance of getting malaria. According to the book, it was not tested under Nuremberg Accord compliant or scientifically rigorous methods – we needed it too bad. Meaning we missed that it is or at least can become a neurotoxin.
Malaria is also awful.
It starts out with a bang, and there are unsettling implications in the echoes. I tend to think that identity is continuity, but our guy had a radical rupture with his continuity. He feels little connection to the man he was. He doesn’t even recognize his dog. Who nonetheless loves him and takes care of him.
As the bang fades, he’s left miserable and afraid of relapse and the suspicion he was not a very good person. There are many drunken long dark nights of his soul.
My sympathy for him soured a bit as he started talking about Alan Moore’s “For the Man Who Has Everything.” Alan Moore can write Superman. A bad guy figures out how to take him down by taking him home – in a drug induced coma where he believes he’s still Kal-El, part of a loving family, on Krypton, part of a thriving community. It’s a great story and an apt tale for our man trying to sort himself out to explore. I was feeling kinship with this man. And then he disses it with “Even a comic book character has the sense to recognize the validity of the real over the imagined.” (245). (Which, given Moore’s body of works is a terribly fraught statement. Not necessarily wrong. Just fraught. Cf. Glycon).
I’d like to say it ends with a whimper. The feel is right for that – he never really answers the riddle, which might just be one of the main variants on the central existential trauma. He has great misery and much vomiting. But then he finds love and a place to live with a woman who has heroic impulses, so that’s nice.
He says we give massive doses of the drug that made him lose continuity to inmates at Guantanamo Bay, not to prevent malaria, but to soften them up for interrogation. That’s going down on our permanent record.
Good reading group book. I liked the This American Life story better, but it got to edit out the long tail. Many of our lives are more compelling with that that.
As a stranger in a strange land with known diseases, he was taking a drug called Lariam to avoid malaria. Lariam is a miracle drug. It vastly decreases the chance of getting malaria. According to the book, it was not tested under Nuremberg Accord compliant or scientifically rigorous methods – we needed it too bad. Meaning we missed that it is or at least can become a neurotoxin.
Malaria is also awful.
It starts out with a bang, and there are unsettling implications in the echoes. I tend to think that identity is continuity, but our guy had a radical rupture with his continuity. He feels little connection to the man he was. He doesn’t even recognize his dog. Who nonetheless loves him and takes care of him.
As the bang fades, he’s left miserable and afraid of relapse and the suspicion he was not a very good person. There are many drunken long dark nights of his soul.
My sympathy for him soured a bit as he started talking about Alan Moore’s “For the Man Who Has Everything.” Alan Moore can write Superman. A bad guy figures out how to take him down by taking him home – in a drug induced coma where he believes he’s still Kal-El, part of a loving family, on Krypton, part of a thriving community. It’s a great story and an apt tale for our man trying to sort himself out to explore. I was feeling kinship with this man. And then he disses it with “Even a comic book character has the sense to recognize the validity of the real over the imagined.” (245). (Which, given Moore’s body of works is a terribly fraught statement. Not necessarily wrong. Just fraught. Cf. Glycon).
I’d like to say it ends with a whimper. The feel is right for that – he never really answers the riddle, which might just be one of the main variants on the central existential trauma. He has great misery and much vomiting. But then he finds love and a place to live with a woman who has heroic impulses, so that’s nice.
He says we give massive doses of the drug that made him lose continuity to inmates at Guantanamo Bay, not to prevent malaria, but to soften them up for interrogation. That’s going down on our permanent record.
Good reading group book. I liked the This American Life story better, but it got to edit out the long tail. Many of our lives are more compelling with that that.
June 30, 2014
In 2002, David Stuart MacLean traveled to India as a Fulbright scholar. One day in October, he "woke up" on a train platform with no memory of who he is or why he's there. A security guard at the train station initially assumed that he was high and took him to what amounted to a halfway house. Eventually, when it became apparent that something else was going on, MacLean found himself in a psychiatric hospital convinced that Jim Henson is God (and that Henson/God really hates masala). It's eventually understood that MacLean's hallucinations and amnesia were the result of a bad reaction to Lariam, an antimalarial medication developed by the military in the 1970s and commonly used up until only very recently.
MacLean originally shared his story on This American Life , and expanded his essay into this memoir, which charts not just the process of "waking up," but also his attempts to piece together his identity and the missing hours of his life that led him to the train platform on that day in October. He spends a few months recovering at home in Ohio. He has to go through the process of re-meeting old friends and his girlfriend, learning along the way that his history as a prankster has caused many to approach his story of amnesia with a healthy dose of skepticism.
He eventually travels back to India to complete his Fulbright obligations, and he pieces together what he was doing and where he was headed that day on the train platform. His neighbors and colleagues in India help him piece together parts of his identity largely unknown to his friends and family back home in America. Like most anyone in the world, MacLean's personality has grown and changed as he's moved through different phases of his life. Trying to connect the David that his parents know to the David that his college friends know to the David that was trying to meet a woman in Goa on the day that he woke up is a fascinating and terrifying process. He's not always comfortable with the facts that he learns about himself, which ultimately complicates the already-complicated process of putting himself back together.
Not surprisingly, this often reads a bit like a TAL essay. It's conversational and frank, blending MacLean's frustrating attempts to piece together the many iterations of himself into a single picture with a brief history of malaria medications and Lariam -- horrifying to anyone with any level of distrust in the pharmaceutical industry.
MacLean originally shared his story on This American Life , and expanded his essay into this memoir, which charts not just the process of "waking up," but also his attempts to piece together his identity and the missing hours of his life that led him to the train platform on that day in October. He spends a few months recovering at home in Ohio. He has to go through the process of re-meeting old friends and his girlfriend, learning along the way that his history as a prankster has caused many to approach his story of amnesia with a healthy dose of skepticism.
He eventually travels back to India to complete his Fulbright obligations, and he pieces together what he was doing and where he was headed that day on the train platform. His neighbors and colleagues in India help him piece together parts of his identity largely unknown to his friends and family back home in America. Like most anyone in the world, MacLean's personality has grown and changed as he's moved through different phases of his life. Trying to connect the David that his parents know to the David that his college friends know to the David that was trying to meet a woman in Goa on the day that he woke up is a fascinating and terrifying process. He's not always comfortable with the facts that he learns about himself, which ultimately complicates the already-complicated process of putting himself back together.
Not surprisingly, this often reads a bit like a TAL essay. It's conversational and frank, blending MacLean's frustrating attempts to piece together the many iterations of himself into a single picture with a brief history of malaria medications and Lariam -- horrifying to anyone with any level of distrust in the pharmaceutical industry.
May 16, 2015
First of all, this book is a really easy read. I got through it in two days, and could've easily gotten it done in one if I had more time to devote to it.
For me, the best part of this book is the raw honesty. I appreciate how he doesn't make his struggles with amnesia into this glamorous/spiritual journey and he really doesn't play himself up as any type of victim or protagonist. David is really believable because you can tell he's being really real about his experiences.
It's very interesting to watch how his insecurity/fear affects his own personal morality and how that inner conflict in turn affects his relationships. It's difficult to watch him damage/ruin some relationships because he is so lost in his own battles. It's captivating to watch how someone with a sort of blank-slate learns to measure himself: his priorities are pretty clear, and they're not necessarily the ones you'd have thought he would have.
The worst part, for me, is that he drags a lot of stuff out that can pretty much be skipped. There are dozens of pages describing him feeling disoriented and empty and scared - but they don't really ADD to your understanding of those feelings, they just repeat them. You get it after 10 pages, but he keeps re-saying it for 200.
I also wish he would have delved more into his own analysis of his experiences/identity. Mainly, we watch him struggle by reading about his actions and then reading about his feelings... but we don't get a lot of introspection. I still have a lot of questions about David and his experiences, that I feel like he could have answered in the book and made it way better. (Spiritually- did it alter his beliefs? did he become more or less spiritual? Morally - does he feel like a better person? Does he resent amnesia or does he see it as a pivotal/essential part of who he is? What did he learn about what it means to be a person/have an identity? Did it ever feel like he was starting from scratch? Why was he so focused on figuring out who he HAD been, and why did he not have any interest in learning who he COULD be? He kept coming really close to the topic of realizing that he is a pretty selfish/self-absorbed person, but he never explored it. It's clear that the amnesia was making him more self-absorbed as time went on. Did he realize that? Did he forgive himself for that? Did he hate it?) If it had contained more of that type of content, I would have definitely liked it a lot more.
For me, the best part of this book is the raw honesty. I appreciate how he doesn't make his struggles with amnesia into this glamorous/spiritual journey and he really doesn't play himself up as any type of victim or protagonist. David is really believable because you can tell he's being really real about his experiences.
It's very interesting to watch how his insecurity/fear affects his own personal morality and how that inner conflict in turn affects his relationships. It's difficult to watch him damage/ruin some relationships because he is so lost in his own battles. It's captivating to watch how someone with a sort of blank-slate learns to measure himself: his priorities are pretty clear, and they're not necessarily the ones you'd have thought he would have.
The worst part, for me, is that he drags a lot of stuff out that can pretty much be skipped. There are dozens of pages describing him feeling disoriented and empty and scared - but they don't really ADD to your understanding of those feelings, they just repeat them. You get it after 10 pages, but he keeps re-saying it for 200.
I also wish he would have delved more into his own analysis of his experiences/identity. Mainly, we watch him struggle by reading about his actions and then reading about his feelings... but we don't get a lot of introspection. I still have a lot of questions about David and his experiences, that I feel like he could have answered in the book and made it way better. (Spiritually- did it alter his beliefs? did he become more or less spiritual? Morally - does he feel like a better person? Does he resent amnesia or does he see it as a pivotal/essential part of who he is? What did he learn about what it means to be a person/have an identity? Did it ever feel like he was starting from scratch? Why was he so focused on figuring out who he HAD been, and why did he not have any interest in learning who he COULD be? He kept coming really close to the topic of realizing that he is a pretty selfish/self-absorbed person, but he never explored it. It's clear that the amnesia was making him more self-absorbed as time went on. Did he realize that? Did he forgive himself for that? Did he hate it?) If it had contained more of that type of content, I would have definitely liked it a lot more.
December 5, 2021
I took Lariam for a trip to South America in the mid- 90's, before there was really anything in the news about it. At some point during that trip I remember having a discussion with three traveling companions about it. Since we were all on the same itinerary, we were all taking it on the same day. Two were having the most amazing, wonderful dreams. The other two were having high levels of anxiety and paranoia. I was in the latter category. Mind you, this was noticeable after only taking it three weeks. I remember, while still on the trip, that the observation that Lariam was an anagram of malaria gave me great distress and also obsessing about the wrecked planes left near the tarmac at the Lima airport. Upon returning home, two more weeks of post-travel doses, which at the time was once a week, were still required. By the time I took the last dose, on dose days my behavior was abnormal to the point that co-workers noticed a difference. At one point I did feel rather out of body and like I was watching myself be irrational, knew I was irrational, but couldn't do anything to stop it. I swore I would never take Lariam again.
Later I remember reading about the military "Psycho Tuesdays" and, at that point, found out that Lariam had not gone through normal drug testing. I was horrified, perhaps more so because I worked in the pharmaceutical industry and found this lack of normal approval process by the FDA absolutely appalling. After reading David MacLean's account, I think I and my friends were lucky. I also think MacLean is lucky he didn't fall into OxyContin addiction as well. This is a quick read. I am not entirely sure I am a fan of the disjointed style the author used, but understand that this is supposed to replicate what it is like to suffer amnesia. Indeed, it must be very unsettling. I did appreciate his also explaining what it is not like. Sadly, nothing I read about Guantanamo shocks me any more. Interestingly, this is not the first account I have read of someone suffering a brain injury, realizing that there were things that they didn't like about their former selves, and improving themselves, version 2.0. Perhaps some self-reflection and self-improvement would benefit us all. Just don't take Lariam to force the issue.
Later I remember reading about the military "Psycho Tuesdays" and, at that point, found out that Lariam had not gone through normal drug testing. I was horrified, perhaps more so because I worked in the pharmaceutical industry and found this lack of normal approval process by the FDA absolutely appalling. After reading David MacLean's account, I think I and my friends were lucky. I also think MacLean is lucky he didn't fall into OxyContin addiction as well. This is a quick read. I am not entirely sure I am a fan of the disjointed style the author used, but understand that this is supposed to replicate what it is like to suffer amnesia. Indeed, it must be very unsettling. I did appreciate his also explaining what it is not like. Sadly, nothing I read about Guantanamo shocks me any more. Interestingly, this is not the first account I have read of someone suffering a brain injury, realizing that there were things that they didn't like about their former selves, and improving themselves, version 2.0. Perhaps some self-reflection and self-improvement would benefit us all. Just don't take Lariam to force the issue.
December 6, 2013
On October 17, 2002, David MacLean woke up on a train platform in Hyderabad, India. He had no idea where he was or why he was there. Not only that, but he didn't even know WHO he was.
Mr. MacLean hadn't been sleeping, doing drugs or drinking. He had been taking an anti-malarial medicine, Lariam (mefloquine). In time, he discovers he suffered a mental break and total amnesia as a result of taking that drug while living in India on a Fulbright scholarship.
Through the proverbial kindness of strangers, Mr. MacLean is passed along to a dizzying succession of good Samaritans, some with their own theories of his problem. "There, there," says a police officer at the train station. "You foreigners come to my country and do your drugs and get confused. It will be all right, my friend."
And, eventually, it seems that everything is all right. It's eleven years down the road, and Mr. MacLean has written this eloquent account of his ordeal. But his recovery has been a long, agonizing one that has severed the person he used to be from the person he is now.
Not only is Mr. MacLean's story fascinating, but his prose is arresting and deeply affecting. Here's how he writes -- newly introspective and grateful -- about the human urge to help others: "In the chaos of this world, where we carom and collide in that everyday turbulence, there's something about the specific gravity of the helpless individual, the lost and the fractured, that draws kindness from us, like venom from a wound."
As for many writers, alcohol, prescription drugs and tobacco -- his impressive intake exhaustively chronicled -- may have exacerbated Mr. MacLean's confusion, terrors and paranoia and derailed his recovery. But what fun would that have been for the reader?!? I was hooked from the moment he wakes up in that train station, and I wish him well on all his life's journeys.
Mr. MacLean hadn't been sleeping, doing drugs or drinking. He had been taking an anti-malarial medicine, Lariam (mefloquine). In time, he discovers he suffered a mental break and total amnesia as a result of taking that drug while living in India on a Fulbright scholarship.
Through the proverbial kindness of strangers, Mr. MacLean is passed along to a dizzying succession of good Samaritans, some with their own theories of his problem. "There, there," says a police officer at the train station. "You foreigners come to my country and do your drugs and get confused. It will be all right, my friend."
And, eventually, it seems that everything is all right. It's eleven years down the road, and Mr. MacLean has written this eloquent account of his ordeal. But his recovery has been a long, agonizing one that has severed the person he used to be from the person he is now.
Not only is Mr. MacLean's story fascinating, but his prose is arresting and deeply affecting. Here's how he writes -- newly introspective and grateful -- about the human urge to help others: "In the chaos of this world, where we carom and collide in that everyday turbulence, there's something about the specific gravity of the helpless individual, the lost and the fractured, that draws kindness from us, like venom from a wound."
As for many writers, alcohol, prescription drugs and tobacco -- his impressive intake exhaustively chronicled -- may have exacerbated Mr. MacLean's confusion, terrors and paranoia and derailed his recovery. But what fun would that have been for the reader?!? I was hooked from the moment he wakes up in that train station, and I wish him well on all his life's journeys.
April 18, 2014
Here we go again with another book that starts out well enough, keeps your interest, and then deteriorates into one big annoying mess. The first few chapters were the most interesting. You read about this guy (the author) who "woke up" on a train platform in India not having any idea where he is, how he got there, or even who the heck he is. A police officer takes him to a mental hospital where he has these hallucinations. His symptoms are caused by the anti-malarial drug Lariam that he has taken. He goes back to the States to figure out what his life was like before.
Sound intriguing? I thought so,too until I got further with the book.
David Stuart MacLean is self-destructive. He's supposed to be recovering from the effects of Lariam and is taking narcotics to help him counteract these effects. But he's drinking an exorbitant amount of alcohol which is not recommended. He also has asthma and he smokes an excessive amount of cigarettes. This is written about ad nauseam.
MacLean's writing is, at times, very good, but most times irritating. He uses way too many similes to "enhance" his prose. They're definitely not needed. You get the picture the first time you read the sentence. It's just endless filler. I should have stopped reading the book early on but I was curious to know what happened to him.
Some of the reviewers wrote that it's a hilarious account and will make you laugh. I didn't crack a smile once. There's nothing funny here.
Don't waste your time unless you enjoy reading about someone's bad habits.
Sound intriguing? I thought so,too until I got further with the book.
David Stuart MacLean is self-destructive. He's supposed to be recovering from the effects of Lariam and is taking narcotics to help him counteract these effects. But he's drinking an exorbitant amount of alcohol which is not recommended. He also has asthma and he smokes an excessive amount of cigarettes. This is written about ad nauseam.
MacLean's writing is, at times, very good, but most times irritating. He uses way too many similes to "enhance" his prose. They're definitely not needed. You get the picture the first time you read the sentence. It's just endless filler. I should have stopped reading the book early on but I was curious to know what happened to him.
Some of the reviewers wrote that it's a hilarious account and will make you laugh. I didn't crack a smile once. There's nothing funny here.
Don't waste your time unless you enjoy reading about someone's bad habits.
September 21, 2017
Hmm. I have super mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it was absolutely fascinating to follow MacLean's journey through the world of amnesia - from the terrifying moment of becoming conscious without a clue who you are, through the process of reestablishing your grasp on reality and your place in it, and finally coming to grips with your identity in a world where you're never really sure if you are the person you're meant to be. Really interesting introspection and description of these processes.
On the other hand, I found myself very much disliking MacLean as a person (even when neither of us really knew who he even was as a person), which made it hard for me to feel the kind of empathy I suspect I was meant to feel for him. His struggles with anxiety and identity felt familiar, but the ways he reacted to them and interacted with the people around him were really off-putting to me. How did even his mother phrase it? "My son, the equal-opportunity jackass."
What MacLean really succeeds at is bringing the reader into his mind, of opening the door so that we could see out of his eyes and feel what he felt as he struggled with his illness(es?): the frustration, the fear, the desperation. That these things came across so well is a great credit to the author, but also probably contributed somewhat to my lack of great enjoyment (who wants to spend their reading hours feeling all those things??) The resolution of the tale is satisfactory, though the title itself gives away much of what might otherwise have been a "ah-ha!" revelation at the end.
On the other hand, I found myself very much disliking MacLean as a person (even when neither of us really knew who he even was as a person), which made it hard for me to feel the kind of empathy I suspect I was meant to feel for him. His struggles with anxiety and identity felt familiar, but the ways he reacted to them and interacted with the people around him were really off-putting to me. How did even his mother phrase it? "My son, the equal-opportunity jackass."
What MacLean really succeeds at is bringing the reader into his mind, of opening the door so that we could see out of his eyes and feel what he felt as he struggled with his illness(es?): the frustration, the fear, the desperation. That these things came across so well is a great credit to the author, but also probably contributed somewhat to my lack of great enjoyment (who wants to spend their reading hours feeling all those things??) The resolution of the tale is satisfactory, though the title itself gives away much of what might otherwise have been a "ah-ha!" revelation at the end.
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