The Minds of Billy Milligan: A True Story of Multiple Personality

The inspiration for the streaming series The Crowded Room, starring Tom Holland • From the acclaimed author of Flowers for Algernon comes the shocking true story of a man battling multiple personality disorder.

“An absorbing, often heart-rending exploration of the human mind.”—Cosmopolitan

Billy Milligan can be anyone he wants to be . . . except himself.

Billy Milligan was a man tormented by twenty-four distinct personalities battling for supremacy over his body—a battle that culminated when he awoke in jail, arrested for the kidnap and rape of three women. In a landmark trial, Billy was acquitted of his crimes by reason of insanity caused by multiple personality—the first such court decision in history—bringing to public light the most remarkable and harrowing case of multiple personality ever recorded.

Twenty-four people live inside Billy Milligan.

Philip, a petty criminal; Kevin, who dealt drugs and masterminded a drugstore robbery; April, whose only ambition was to kill Billy's stepfather; Adalana, the shy, lonely, affection-starved lesbian who “used” Billy's body in the rapes that led to his arrest; David, the eight-year-old “keeper of pain”; and all of the others, including men, women, several children, both boys and girls, and the Teacher, the only one who can put them all together. You will meet each in this often shocking true story. And you will be drawn deeply into the mind of this tortured young man and his splintered, terrifying world.

Daniel Keyes was born in New York City and graduated from Brooklyn College. His award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon is studied in high schools and colleges across the country. Keyes died in 2014.