Susannah Cahalan

Susannah Cahalan

Susannah Cahalan was born on January 30th, 1985 and is currently 41 years old. Susannah Cahalan was born in New York, USA. Cahalan attended Washington University in St. Louis.

Susannah Cahalan is an author and writer, best known for writing Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, her memoir. Susannah is also a writer for New York Post.

She was a journalist for New York Post before becoming ill and her editor suggested that she write about the disease and the effect that it had on her. While recovering from her brain illness, she decided to bring the exact same journalistic approach to writing her memoir, using research and fact as the foundation of her story.

She found that it was a very dissociative process to write about the experience she had with this disease. Susannah had to recreate the timeline of everything that happened during this time, gathering together different records from the hospital in order to keep track of what happened and when. It was through interviewing those closest to her that she was able to piece together what this month looked like. What she remembered was the anger and fear that it created inside her. Writing the book felt a lot like regaining control over the body that had controlled her for so long.

Her illness started in 2009 with sensory issues. She experienced the world being louder and brighter, more painful. Susannah also experienced numbness in the whole left side of her body, and paranoid hallucinations of bed bug bites. She sought a neurologist out, concerned by the numbness, and this person ran multiple inconclusive tests, including two normal MRIs.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, and is the powerful account of a woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.

Susannah Cahalan (24 years old) woke up in a hospital room alone, strapped down to her bed, unable to either speak or move, she had no memory of how she had even gotten there. Just days earlier, she’d been on the threshold of a new adult life: at the start of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was being labeled a psychotic, violent, and a flight risk. What happened?

In a breathtaking and swift narrative, she tells the astonishing true tale about her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis which almost didn’t happen.

Here is an unforgettable exploration of love and faith, identity and memory, and a profoundly compelling story about perseverance and survival which is destined to become a classic.

Susannah Cahalan: Awards & Accolades

Cahalan's book, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness was nominated for the Alex Awards, Best Book, in 2013.

Susannah Cahalan: Lists & Other Mentions

• The Great Pretender was a Time Magazine: 100 Must-Read Books Selection in 2019.

Related Authors

Fans of Susannah Cahalan also enjoy these authors:

1. Kristin Hannah, author of: The Nightingale.
2. Fredrik Backman, author of: A Man Called Ove.
3. James Patterson, author of the Alex Cross Series.
4. John Grisham, author of the Jake Brigance Series.
5. Anthony Doerr, author of: All the Light We Cannot See.

Susannah Cahalan: F.A.Q