Bunkobons

← All books

Cover of The Center Cannot Hold

The Center Cannot Hold

by Elyn R. Saks

Buy on Amazon

A much-praised memoir of living and surviving mental illness as well as "a stereotype-shattering look at a tenacious woman whose brain is her best friend and her worst enemy" (Time). Elyn R. Saks is an esteemed professor, lawyer, and psychiatrist and is the Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Law School, yet she has suffered from schizophrenia for most of her life, and still has ongoing major episodes of the illness. The Center Cannot Hold is the eloquent, moving story of Elyn's life, from the first time that she heard voices speaking to her as a young teenager, to attempted suicides in college, through learning to live on her own as an adult in an often terrifying world.…

Recommended by

"“The Center Cannot Hold,” by Elyn Saks"
By the Book: Jeannette Walls · nytimes.com
"Elyn R. Saks's memoir, "The Center Cannot Hold," is the most hopeful book I've read by a person with a severe mental illness. It's a romantic vision."
By the Book: Mona Simpson · nytimes.com