Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia - Hardcover

Pamela Spiro Wagner; Spiro, Carolyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312320647 ISBN 13: 9780312320645

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2005

Synopsis

A riveting true story of sisters who were identical, until the voices began

Growing up in the fifties, Carolyn Spiro was always in the shadow of her more intellectually dominant and socially outgoing twin, Pamela. But as the twins approached adolescence, Pamela began to suffer the initial symptoms of schizophrenia, hearing disembodied voices that haunted her for years and culminated during her freshman year of college at Brown University where she had her first major breakdown and hospitalization. Pamela’s illness allowed Carolyn to enter the spotlight that had for so long been focused on her sister. Exceeding everyone’s expectations, Carolyn graduated from Harvard Medical School and forged a successful career in psychiatry.

Despite Pamela’s estrangement from the rest of her family, the sisters remained very close, “bonded with the twin glue,” calling each other several times a week and visiting as frequently as possible. Carolyn continued to believe in the humanity of her sister, not merely in her illness, and Pamela responded.

Told in the alternating voices of the sisters, Divided Minds is a heartbreaking account of the far reaches of madness as well as the depths of ambivalence and love between twins. It is a true and unusually frank story of identical twins with very different identities and wildly different experiences of the world around them. It is one of the most compelling histories of two such siblings in the canon of writing on mental illness.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Growing up in the fifties, Carolyn Spiro was always in the shadow of her more intellectually dominant and social outgoing twin, Pamela. But as the twins approached adolescence, Pamela began to succumb to schizophrenia, hearing disembodied voices and eventually suffering many breakdowns and hospitalizations.

Divided Minds is a dual memoir of identical twins, one of whom faces a life sentence of schizophrenia, and the other who becomes a psychiatrist, after entering the spotlight that had for so long been focused on her sister. Told in the alternating voices of the sisters, Divided Minds is a heartbreaking account of the far reaches of madness, as well as the depths of ambivalence and love between twins. It is a true and unusually frank story of identical twins with very different identities and wildly different experiences of the world around them.

"This harrowing but arresting memoir―written in alternating voices by identical twins, now in their 50s―reveals how devastating schizophrenia is to both the victim and those who love her."
--Publishers Weekly starred review

"[A] riveting memoir . . . Divided Minds does a remarkable job of interpreting [a] hellish realm."
--People, three stars

"[Divided Minds] successfully yields compelling insights on familial bonds and the ravaging effects of mental illness on family."
--Library Journal

"The combination of first-person narratives provides an unusually well-rounded portrait of schizophrenia."
--Kirkus

About the Author:

PAMELA SPIRO WAGNER is a writer and poet living in Wethersfield, Connecticut. She is the winner of the 1993 Connecticut Mental Health Media Award, Tunxis Poetry Review First Prize for three consecutive years, and the 2002 BBC International Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in The Hartford Courant, Tikkun, Trinity Review, Midwest Poetry Review, and LA Weekly. CAROLYN S. SPIRO, M.D., is a private practice psychiatrist and writer living in Wilton, Connecticut. Pamela and Carolyn worked together for three years on Divided Minds.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0312320647
• ISBN 13: 9780312320645
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336