Strangers to Ourselves

2022 The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year Long-listed 2022 New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Yea Long-listed 2022 Vogue Magazine Best Books of the Year Long-listed 2022 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year Long-listed 2022 Los Angeles Times Holiday Books Guide Long-listed 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee Short-listed 2022 Wall Street Journal Best Books of the Yea Long-listed 2022 BookPage Best Books of the Year Long-listed 2022 New Yorker Best Books of the Year Long-listed 2022 Time Magazine Best Books of the Year Long-listed 2022 Washington Post Best Books of the Year Long-listedThe highly anticipated debut from the acclaimed award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv compels us to examine how the stories we tell about mental illness shape our sense of who we are.In Strangers to Ourselves a powerful and gripping debut Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman celebrated as a saint who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children’s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis decides to go off her meds because she doesn’t know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar Straus and Giroux