A Stitch of Time

Lauren Marks

• 01 mei 2018
• 9781451697605

Samenvatting:

&;Readers will be compelled by this illuminating debut memoir&;a captivating&; (Kirkus Reviews) account of one woman&;s journey to regain her language and identity after a brain aneurysm steals her ability to communicate.

Lauren Marks was twenty-seven, touring a show in Scotland with her friends, when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain and left her fighting for her life. She woke up in a hospital with serious deficiencies to her reading, speaking, and writing abilities, and an unfamiliar diagnosis: aphasia. This would be shocking news for anyone, but Lauren was a voracious reader, an actress, director, and at the time of the event, pursuing her PhD. At any other period of her life, this diagnosis would have been a devastating blow. But she woke up&;different. The way she perceived her environment and herself had profoundly changed, her entire identity seemed crafted around a language she could no longer access. She returned to her childhood home to recover, grappling with a muted inner monologue and fractured sense of self.

Soon after, Lauren began a journal, to chronicle her year following the rupture. A Stitch of Time is the remarkable result, an Oliver Sacks&;like case study of a brain slowly piecing itself back together, featuring clinical research about aphasia and linguistics, interwoven with Lauren&;s narrative and actual journal entries that marked her progress. Alternating between fascination and frustration, she relearns and re-experiences many of the things we take for granted&;reading a book, understanding idioms, even sharing a &;first kiss&;&;and begins to reconcile &;The Girl I Used to Be&; with &;The Girl I Am Now.&; For fans of Brain on Fire and My Stroke of Insight, the deeply personal and powerful A Stitch of Time is an &;engrossing&; (Publishers Weekly) journey of self-discovery, resilience, and hope.