When Garrard Conley comes to the realization that he’s gay–he’s known since junior high–he does his best to keep it hidden, balling the truth up inside himself. He has a lot at stake: his parents are conservative, under the impression that homosexuality is a sin. His father, once Garrard is outed by the guy who sexually assaults him, threatens to stop paying for college if he acts on his impulses.
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I had been in the hospital for eighteen days, and not only wasn’t I any closer to a cure, I wasn’t but my condition seemed to be heading steadily downhill.
p. 121, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
Susannah Cahalan’s memoir is electrifying. Written with the help of medical journals, the journals of her parents, and other such resources, she recreates her month where her brain was on fire, suffering from a rare autoimmune disease.
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