Sex with a Brain Injury

On Concussion and Recovery

By: Annie Liontas

Narrated by: Natalie Naudus

Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

For readers of Meghan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom, Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias, and Melissa Febos’s Girlhood, a powerful and deeply personal memoir in essays that sheds light on the silent epidemic of head trauma.

Annie Liontas suffered multiple concussions in her thirties. In Sex with a Brain Injury, she writes about what it means to be one of the “walking wounded,” facing her fear, her rage, her physical suffering, and the effects of head trauma on her marriage and other relationships. Forced to reckon with her own queer mother’s battle with addiction, Liontas finds echoes in their pain. Liontas weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability—particularly in relation to women and the LGBT community. She uncovers the surprising legacy of brain injury, examining its role in culture, the criminal justice system, and through historical figures like Henry VIII and Harriet Tubman. Encountering Liontas’s sharp, affecting prose, the reader can imagine this kind of pain, and having to claw one’s way back to a new normal. The hidden gift of injury, Liontas writes, is the ability to connect with others.

For the millions of people who have suffered from concussions and for those who have endeavored to support loved ones through the painful and often baffling experience of head trauma, this astonishing and compassionate narrative offers insight and hope in equal measure.

©2024 Annie Liontas (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

favorite memoir of the past year (or more)

Beautifully and compellingly written, both deeply personal and meticulously researched. This book is a huge contribution to our understanding of the brain, its injuries, and its resilience--and to the dynamics of personality, hope, and the rest of the often messy business of being human.

TW- suicide mentions, Artfully written, real and raw

If you are looking for a book that is honest, raw and real about mTBI this is it. No toxic positivity, but some hope. Artfully crafted and told with heart- read with an easy to hear voice. Like many with PPCS there is mention of suicide and suicide ideation. A must read for providers that care for those w TBI and families. Likely hearing it will help you feel seen and known, a gift in an in invisible, isolating condition.