The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves [Hardcover]

"As Hustvedt tries to remember pivotal medical and psychological moments in her life—she heard voices as a child, as did a couple of her sisters, had an early quaking fever, suffered from fierce migraines, tried various drugs—she segues smoothly into a wonderful section about the nature of memory…. Self-absorption can be grating in memoirs by lesser writers; in Hustvedt’s capable hands, it opens a door to revelation."—Kirkus Reviews

"Fascinating.... Hustvedt compellingly illustrates both the fragmented nature of her treatment, with the fields of psychiatry, neurology and psychoanalysis offering up conflicting views, and the difficulty of making a conclusive diagnosis. She asks fascinating questions about what it is that actually causes a physical ailment, and shows that our sense of the separation of mind and body has been generated in part by the medical establishment…. She leaves the reader thinking about his or her own bouts of illness in a thoroughly fresh way."—Lorna Bradbury, The Daily Telegraph (UK)

"[The Shaking Woman] is a personal investigation, a philosophical inquiry, and a pithy, compacted consideration of how both psychiatry and neurology have evolved in the last two centuries.... Fastidious yet engaged, intimate yet detached, Hustvedt’s exploration of mind and body embraces material that is interdisciplinary, complex and contentious. Her clean intelligence is equal to the challenge. Her frame of reference is wide and she does not condescend to past explorers…. Hustvedt is an ambitious, cerebral novelist, and the links between this book and her fiction are overt…. She brings both knowledge and an artist's insight to her discussion of memory, language, personal identity. Readers of Oliver Sacks will rate this book highly; as with Sacks, scientific knowledge and a powerful capacity for empathy are closely linked…. It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear."—Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall (in The Guardian)

"This investigation will appeal to fans of Oliver Sacks and those interested in the peculiar twists and turns of our mysterious minds."—Library Journal

"In our culture, telling the world that you, a woman, suffer from migraine or other mysterious and difficult-to-treat disorders is still tantamount to telling the world you are mad: unstable, unreliable, moaning, self-obsessed. So it’s a brave creature who announces such a thing, let alone writes a book about it…. The Shaking Woman is the product of voracious reading and deep thought, and you register its author’s sanity in every sentence."—Rachel Cooke, The Observer (UK)

"[Hustvedt’s] eloquent account flits between philosophy, science and anecdotes from the writing classes she runs for psychiatric patients, as well as her own experiences of those seizures, migraines, voices in her head and a heightened perceptual awareness. Hustvedt explores many grey areas—between mind, brain and body, sleep and wakefulness, consciousness and reality, truth and confabulation. In the process she shows how hard it is to study the mind objectively. How apt, then, that her account is stitched together by a delightfully subjective novelist's pen."—New Scientist

"Hustvedt’s deeply personal narrative reads at once like a detective novel, a medical history and a scientific critique. Through her own medical mystery, she keeps the reader engaged in the science by drawing connections to fascinating case stories from the medical literature."—Frederik Joelving, Scientific American Mind

"Hustvedt’s account of the diagnostic mess surrounding puzzling physical symptoms is very accessible. It’s also extremely fair-minded, especially regarding psychoanalysis."—Anouchka Grose, Financial Times

"Siri Hustvedt’s subtle novels have long manifested a fascination with the mind-body duality…. Hustvedt’s new book is a journey into this perplexing terrain, using the maps and signposts mind doctors and philosophers have provided both past and present…. Her own convulsing self may act as the spur to Hustvedt’s investigations, but it is the lucidity she brings to these which mark the strength of this new book. She thinks her way through complex subject matter with the effortless clarity of a poised and skeptical outsider who has little time for nonsense or the blithe reductionist certainties of supposed experts. She moves from Charcot to Freud and Janet, with a side-step into Luria and memory work, sifts and marries this with the latest research in neuropsychiatry and neuropsychoanalysis, while bringing to bear on it all her own experience with patients in a psychiatric ward—as well as her prize test case, herself. The result is a short book with an encyclopaedic breadth, one that recognises the ‘terrible strangeness’ of the inner life. THE SHAKING WOMAN is an invigorating antidote to the emotional squelchiness which too often inhabits misery memoirs and illness narratives…. it deepens understanding."—Lisa Appignanesi, The Independent (UK)

"In this far-roaming neurological memoir, Hustvedt, a writer of psychologically complex fiction, chronicles her quest for a diagnosis after she was seized by powerful convulsions while speaking at a memorial for her father… With exceptional gifts for translating dense medical discourse into lucid and supple prose and for conducting fierce and revealing analysis, Hustvedt pinpoints the perceptions underlying contradictory theories pertaining to a host of neurological pathologies… Fizzing with uncommon facts, case studies, and profiles of migraine-afflicted and epileptic writers, Hustvedt’s inquiry into some of the most baffling aspects of human life is graceful, intense, and curiously affirming."—Donna Seaman, Booklist

"Compelling."—Jackie McGlone, The Herald (Scotland)

"She has an amazing capacity to process large amounts of information on complex topics and to re-present it in a form that is understandable without seeming oversimplified."—Molly McCloskey, The Irish Times

"[Siri Hustvedt] embarks on an exploration of the fuzzy area where trauma, emotion, and the body meet, and her peregrinations take readers from the history of hysteria to the grey areas of modern psychological diagnoses. Hustvedt knows her material—her lyrical, learned narrative is a joy to read."—Seed (Books to Read Now)

"A harrowing and heartfelt memoir that is also a history of medicine, a critique of psychiatry and psychopharmacology, and a study of the curative powers of words, dreams and memories…. Hustvedt has read deeply and widely in the scientific literature as it relates to her various physical ailments, but she always returns to the first-person experience that informs her book…. Every observed and remembered detail of human experience has meaning if it can only be retrieved, scrutinized and understood.  That’s a tool of psychotherapy, of course, but it also describes exactly what writers do. In "The Shaking Woman," Siri Hustvedt has done it exceptionally well."—Jonathan Kirsch, The Jewish Journal

"Illuminating the core question of her history, Siri Hustvedt, a fearless investigator and lucid storyteller, creates a mesmerizing picture."—Robert Birnbaum, The Morning News

"Much less an illness memoir than an inquisition into the science of the brain. Hustvedt calls on ...