Purple November Reads: Epilepsy Awareness Month
This month holds a special place in my heart as my nearly 6-year-old daughter was not only born in November, but also has epilepsy.
Through the highs and lows of our journey, books have been a source of comfort and inspiration to the both of us. They’ve connected us to stories of courage, resilience, hope, and the beauty of life’s extraordinary moments.
Books have the incredible power to inform, inspire, and provide solace. To honor this month, we’ve curated a list of books that feature characters or themes related to epilepsy:
She Danced with Lightning
Marc Palmieri
Part family memoir, part medical mystery involving severe epilepsy, She Danced with Lightning follows one girl’s battle to persevere as a competitive dancer, culminating in a terrifying decline, a courageous performance, and an eleventh hour, life-saving brain surgery.
Eleven-year-old Anna has lived all her life with severe epilepsy. Despite the ravage of thousands of violent seizures and heavy medications, she has thrived at school, athletics, and her greatest passion—dance. As she approaches her twelfth birthday, Anna’s condition takes a dire turn. Her health declines quickly and a new diagnosis is revealed, leaving the family only one excruciating choice. A parent’s memoir about the medical mysteries of epilepsy and the personal suffering of raising a child with a deadly health condition, She Danced with Lightning is told from the perspective of Anna’s dream-chasing father, who comes to learn from her a strength and courage he never imagined possible.
The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Returning to Russia from a sanitarium in Switzerland, the Christ-like epileptic Prince Myshkin finds himself enmeshed in a tangle of love, torn between two women—the notorious kept woman Nastasya and the pure Aglaia—both involved, in turn, with the corrupt, money-hungry Ganya. In the end, Myshkin’s honesty, goodness, and integrity are shown to be unequal to the moral emptiness of those around him.
This study of natural goodness is Dostoevsky’s most touching novel. Prince Myshkin, the last, poverty-stricken member of a once great family and regarded by many as an idiot, returns to Russia from a sanatorium in Switzerland in order to collect an inheritance. Before he has even arrived home he becomes involved with Rogozhin, a rich merchant’s son whose obsession with the fascinating Nastasya Filippovna eventually draws all three of them into a tragic denouement. But this is only the main thread of a rich and complex book in which a dazzling host of characters, from generals to street urchins, present the picture of an entire society on the verge of dissolution. A tragicomic masterpiece.
The Sacred Disease
Kristin Seaborg
Young Kristin Seaborg had the world at her fingertips: a loving family, happiness and security, early admission to medical school. Her future seemed certain, until the frightening diagnosis of epilepsy threatened to destroy both her career path and her health. Living in constant fear that her seizures would intensify and prevent her from practicing medicine, Kristin kept her condition a closely guarded secret, leading a tenuous double life as patient and practitioner.
A memoir of discovery, acceptance, and hope, The Sacred Disease chronicles Kristin’s tenacious fight for a seizure-free life. Remarkably, although Kristin’s knowledge and expertise continue to develop as a pediatrician and mother, her experiences as a vulnerable patient provide the most valuable lessons of all.
Tinkers
Paul Harding
An old man lies dying. Propped up in his living room and surrounded by his children and grandchildren, George Washington Crosby drifts in and out of consciousness, back to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in Maine. As the clock repairer’s time winds down, his memories intertwine with those of his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler and his grandfather, a Methodist preacher beset by madness.
At once heartbreaking and life affirming, Tinkers is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, illness, faith, and the fierce beauty of nature.
Electricity
Ray Robinson
Lily’s epilepsy means she’s used to seeing the world in terms of angles — you look at every surface, you weigh up every corner, and you think of your head slamming into it — but what would “she” be like without her sharp edges? Prickly, spiky, up-front honest and down-to-earth practical, Lily is thirty, and life’s not easy but she gets by. Gets on with it. Has to — what choice is there? So she’s learned to make do, to make the most of things, to look after — and out for — herself. Coping, managing, surviving. Needing no-one and asking for nothing. Just her and her epilepsy: her constant companion.
But then her mother — who Lily’s not seen for years — dies, and Lily is drawn back into a world she thought she’d long since left behind. At the same time, however, it’s also somewhere disturbingly unfamiliar: newly reunited with one of her brothers, and hoping to track down the other, Lily is no longer alone. Forced to renegotiate the boundaries of her life, she realises she has alot to learn — about relationships, about the past, and about herself — and some difficult decisions ahead of her.
“Electricity” is Lily’s story; told in fits and starts, it’s an edgy, compelling novel and a distinctive debut.
A Great Place for a Seizure
Terry Tracy
Mischa Dunn’s family flees Chile in the wake of the 1973 coup d’etat that installs a military dictatorship. She settles comfortably in her newly adopted country, the United States, until one day, an unexplained seizure in a library signals the beginning of her life with epilepsy. With an engaging balance of humor, insight, and sensitivity Mischa draws the reader into a vivid tale that travels across three continents over thirty years.
How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets
Garth Stein
Fathers never forget seeing their kids for the first time. But Evan is greeting his son, Dean, fourteen years late. The boy had been shuttled secretly to another city, along with his teenaged mother, while still a newborn. Now his mother has passed away, and Evan is it—Dad. An instant single parent.
Evan was once lead guitarist for a hot band with a hit single; now 31, he gets by as a guitar instructor to middle-aged guys, and does menial work in a music shop. With Dean in the picture he has to change fast, which means facing up to the past, to his own father, and to the epilepsy that haunts him and threatens his every moment.
A Mind Unraveled
Kurt Eichenwald
The compelling story of an acclaimed journalist and New York Times bestselling author’s ongoing struggle with epilepsy–his torturous decision to keep his condition a secret to avoid discrimination, and his ensuing decades-long battle to not only survive, but to thrive.
As a college freshman, Kurt Eichenwald awoke one night on the floor of his dorm room, confused and in pain. In the aftermath of that critical moment, his once-carefree life would be consumed by confrontations with medical incompetence, discrimination that almost cost him his education and employment, physical abuse, and dark moments when he contemplated suicide.
This is the story of one man’s battle to pursue his dreams despite an often incapacitating brain disorder. From his early experiences of fear and denial to his exasperating search for treatment, Eichenwald provides a deeply candid account of his years facing this misunderstood and often stigmatized condition. He details his encounters with the doctors whose negligence could have killed him, but for the heroic actions of a brilliant neurologist and the family and friends who fought for him.
Many of Eichenwald’s recollections are drawn from his diaries, vivid and painstakingly kept records that helped sharpen his skills as a journalist. He raises important questions about the nature of memory, the revelations of brain science, and the profound mysteries of human perception.
Ultimately, A Mind Unraveled is an inspirational story, one that chronicles how Eichenwald, faced often with his own mortality, transformed trauma into a guide for reaching the future he desired. Defying relentless threats to his emotional and physical well-being, he affirmed his decision to never give up, and in the process learned how to rise from the depths of despair to the heights of unimagined success.
The Universe Versus Alex Woods
Gavin Extence
A rare meteorite struck Alex Woods when he was ten years old, leaving scars and marking him for an extraordinary future. The son of a fortune teller, bookish, and an easy target for bullies, Alex hasn’t had the easiest childhood.
But when he meets curmudgeonly widower Mr. Peterson, he finds an unlikely friend. Someone who teaches him that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make it count.
So when, aged seventeen, Alex is stopped at customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the front seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he’s fairly sure he’s done the right thing …
Introducing a bright young voice destined to charm the world, The Universe Versus Alex Woods is a celebration of curious incidents, astronomy and astrology, the works of Kurt Vonnegut and the unexpected connections that form our world.
Let’s raise awareness, spread understanding, and show our support.
If you or someone you love is living with epilepsy, please share your story or experiences, your favorite books, or simply a message of solidarity. Together, we can illuminate the path to a more informed and compassionate world.
