The Minds of Billy Milligan

By: Daniel Keyes

Narrated by: Roger Wayne

Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

Billy Milligan can be anyone he wants to be … except himself.

Out of control of his actions, Billy Milligan was a man tormented by twenty-four distinct personalities battling for supremacy over his body—a battle that culminated when he awoke in jail, arrested for the kidnap and rape of three women. In a landmark trial, Billy was acquitted of his crimes by reason of insanity caused by multiple personality—the first such court decision in history—bringing to public light the most remarkable and harrowing case of multiple personality ever recorded.

Twenty-four people live inside Billy Milligan.

Philip, a petty criminal; Kevin, who dealt drugs and masterminded a drugstore robbery; April, whose only ambition was to kill Billy’s stepfather; Adalana, the shy, lonely, affection-starved lesbian who “used” Billy’s body in the rapes that led to his arrest; David, the eight-year-old “keeper of pain”; and all of the others, including men, women, several children, and the teacher, the only one who can put them all together. You will meet each in this often shocking true story. And you will be drawn deeply into the mind of this tortured young man and his splintered, terrifying world.

©1981, 1982 Daniel Keyes and William S. Milligan (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Incredible

Great performance, amazing insights into the mind, perfect composition of details and narrative. I’m sad it ended!

Very interesting true story with perfect narration

Really enjoyed this book. I felt that the narrator was the perfect choice for this book. All of the different voices he had to use for each of the personalities is what I enjoyed the most

Totally entertaining and eye opening

I saw the TV show first, but the book was way better for me. I highly recommend it. I learned from this book too and highly recommend it.

Just boring

Saying the same so much over and over. It was clear what had caused this to happen to him very quickly but so slow to say the cause

Interesting and enjoyable!

Started watching The Crowded Room and found this while waiting for the next episode to drop.

Very intriguing story about Billy and his other personalities. It was very detailed and I enjoyed the glimpse into his mind.

Weak Believability

Whereas, I appreciate the authors attempt to piece together conversations among the personalities and outside people, I found them weak and unbelievable. The general story of a man with multiple personalities was interesting. Unfortunately, the portrayal was lacking.

Poor editing

There are several lines that are repeated… Very frustrating to listen to. Overall good story though.

Well written & performed!

People who reviewed this negatively don’t seem to understand how reviews work…you are reviewing the writing and performance of this story NOT the morality of the person the story is about.

This was very well written and offered a very detailed glimpse into the heartbreaking life and mind of Billy Milligan. I had to keep reminding myself that this was nonfiction because it’s hard to believe at times the amount of horrible things that happened to one person in addition to living with split personalities. I appreciated that the actor who read this story gave different voices for each of the personalities - there were parts of this story that would be a little hard to follow if he hadn’t done that and I can only imagine reading them myself without the voices would have been hard to keep everyone straight so I appreciated it very much. I have been recommending this book, in particular this audiobook version, to everyone especially those who have watched The Crowded Room.

Hard Life

The interesting things I found is how our body uses “splitting” to help us through events we are too immature to handle. As a child it is hard to understand an adult deviant and what they do to a person. Therefore, our mind creates an escape hatch- where our person goes off in another direction while the body is abused. Saddens me to think how harsh a reality it is to grow up in an abusive situation. Our mind & body use what it knows to endure and “escape” for a while. Our memory of said event becomes buried and that is our coping mechanism. How we survive. Hope at this time Billy is healthy and has a nice life- as much as he can. Great book to help understand how life is for someone- a small look behind the scenes.

Listen and learn.

Narrator did fabulous! Been wanting to read/ listen to this title for a while. Personally intrigued about Billy for a while now. Definitely give it a chance.