The Best Minds

A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

De: Jonathan Rosen

Narrado por: Jonathan Rosen

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • Named a Top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate, and People

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2023

“Brave and nuanced . . . an act of tremendous compassion and a literary triumph.” —The New York Times

“Immensely emotional and unforgettably haunting.” —The Wall Street Journal

Acclaimed author Jonathan Rosen’s haunting investigation of the forces that led his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor, from the heights of brilliant promise to the forensic psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing the woman he loved. A story about friendship, love, and the price of self-delusion, The Best Minds explores the ways in which we understand—and fail to understand—mental illness.

When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of college professors, the boys were best friends and keen competitors, and, when they both got into Yale University, seemed set to join the American meritocratic elite.

Michael blazed through college in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. But all wasn’t as it seemed. One day, Jonathan received the call: Michael had suffered a serious psychotic break and was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital.

Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Michael was still battling delu­sions when he traded his halfway house for Yale Law School. Featured in The New York Times as a role model genius, he sold a memoir, with film rights to Ron Howard. But then Michael, in the grip of an unshakeable paranoid fantasy, stabbed his girlfriend Carrie to death and became a front-page story of an entirely different sort.

Tender, funny, and harrowing by turns, The Best Minds is Jonathan Rosen’s magnificent and heartbreaking account of good intentions and tragic outcomes whose significance will echo widely.

©2023 Jonathan Rosen (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Brave and nuanced . . . The Best Minds is too a thoughtfully built, deeply sourced indictment of a society that prioritizes profit, quick fixes and happy endings over the long slog of care . . . Effectively taking over his friend’s unfinished project, braiding it with his own story of clinical anxiety as well as skeins of history, medicine, religion and true crime, the author has transcended childhood rivalry by twinning their stories, an act of tremendous compassion and a literary triumph.”—The New York Times

“Haunting . . . Rosen tells this story with such a keen mix of compassion and eloquence we can’t help but hope there will be a twist that somehow saves everyone from the inevitably heartbreaking outcome . . . Throughout the book—which is part memoir, part manifesto—Rosen asks uncomfortable but crucial questions, some of them unanswerable, all of them compelling, and the result is an incisive but intimate tour de force that’s as much about Michael’s story as it is about the stories we tell as a culture—what we value, what we see, and what we do our best not to see even when it’s right in front of us . . . Masterful.”—The Washington Post

“This engrossing memoir centers on the author’s childhood friend Michael Laudor, who developed schizophrenia and, in his thirties, committed a horrific murder . . . Rosen thoughtfully interweaves this story with an account of changing attitudes toward mental illness.”—The New Yorker

An Important Book

I was very touched by this book. It was particularly poignant to me as a son of a paranoid schizophrenic person.

I lived through periods when my parent was not well and it was impossible to get assistance for her because of the philosophical, social, and political changes documented in this book.

Perhaps it struck me even more as a former lawyer who struggled though the complexities an impossible equities of prosecuting and defending mentally I’ll people.

Slightly older than the author and Michael, the story of their youth reminded me of mine in another Jewish neighborhood, Forest Hills.

Finally, I would just remark that the obvious collapse of my of our cities, and the continuing collapse of our criminal justice system are tied to what is destroying our country.

While the mental health system desperately needed reform, it didn’t need what has occurred, the practical abandonment of the mentally ill, to the streets, jail, and prison.

Perhaps the awareness of these things provided by this book may lead to change and humane reform.

A brilliant tale of the personal and public tragedy of mental illness

As a retired activist in 1980s movement for de institutionalization, I bear part of the guilt for the naivete and short sightedness of a generation of do-gooders who did bad. This book gives a personal view of one tragic take out of many, compelling references to many other whose self-advocacy revealed their struggles, and a comprehensive scholarly review of the laws, journals, public controversies and literature around the topic while remaining literate, fascinating and succinct.

It's just too long

its amazing that the author can take such a long time to say so little! It's like he couldn't decide whether this was going to be a heartfelt memoir or a sociology of mental illness and so it ended up being neither.

I know why this book is popular among advocates

This story is exceptionally detailed in its telling of a true story told in a way that only a gifted writer could tell. I appreciate the author’s awareness and research into the complicated nature and the far reaching effects that mental illnesses played in his friends life. To the author: thanks for narrating your book.

 Compelling

This is an extraordinary account of friendship an illness. It is a compelling account of support, caution, and repeated questioning about how to best support someone with a serious illness.

A masterpiece

Very engaging on every level. An amazing amount of research went into this book, allowing us to follow the main character, Michael, from childhood through his imprisonment in great detail. One of the best books about schizophrenia I've ever read or listened to. Masterfully conveys the tragedy of this severe mental illness and offers needed recommendations for changes in the mental health system.

Deeply Felt, Astutely Observed, Beautifully Written

Not a quick read, but the narrative is better for the twists and turns a long the way, and the humanistic depiction of the central figures.

Amazing!

Wonderfully entertaining and educational all at the same time. The narrator was awesome to listen to!

Great story cluttered with dry details

The story is heart wrenching and fascinating. I wish there was more insight to the friendly relationship. It was obviously very competitive, but that isn’t dissected. I would have preferred less scholarly history and philosophy, lots less about the author and more information about the victim. About how she and the protagonist met and became involved. Were there sign of the illness earlier in his life? The best and most honest and sad part is at the end, when, despite misgivings, the author visits his old friend and describes the multiple visits. All the competition and ups and downs are swept away. All that matters is the author’s decency and compassion. I wish there would have been more of that - more heart. It seems like this was the author’s chance to cash in on his relationship with someone infamous, which had really dwindled to a memory by the time the shocking event occured. He’s been a writer, but not very successful. This book will win awards and will make the author lots of money. The movie might yet get made.

mental illness

revelation on mental illness in our country and how we fo not recognize until it may be too late for some