A01=Fredrik deBoer
anxiety
Author_Fredrik deBoer
Big Swiss
bipolar
blue cover
Category=FB
Category=FBA
Category=FXB
Category=FXM
Category=FXP
college girl
depression
depressive
Detransition Baby
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
Freddie deBoer
health
literary novel
manic
medicated
mental disorder
mental health
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
social criticism
Substack
Substacker
therapy
vintage girl on cover
wellness
Product details
- ISBN 9781566897372
- Dimensions: 139 x 209mm
- Publication Date: 20 Nov 2025
- Publisher: Coffee House Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In his debut novel, longtime observer of culture and politics Fredrik deBoer depicts mental illness in all its grim and ugly reality, free of our culture's endless romanticization of insanity.
In a dorm room at her safety school, surrounded by corn-fed boys and contemptuous girls, Alice is losing her mind. Her first semester is spent clinging to middling grades between drunken hookups and roommate fights. The next brings sleepless nights, extreme weight loss, and effortless, compulsive energy, paused only by an unexpected summoning from the RA for evaluation. Thus begins an endless march of lithium, antidepressants, and Klonopin; doctors and therapists—when health insurance allows—along with overwhelmed parents and well-intentioned friends; all helpless bystanders as Alice descends deeper into chaos.
As chilling as a psychiatric case study, as wry and precise as Flaubert, The Mind Reels peels back society's polite trappings to portray the experience of mental illness in all its complexity.
In a dorm room at her safety school, surrounded by corn-fed boys and contemptuous girls, Alice is losing her mind. Her first semester is spent clinging to middling grades between drunken hookups and roommate fights. The next brings sleepless nights, extreme weight loss, and effortless, compulsive energy, paused only by an unexpected summoning from the RA for evaluation. Thus begins an endless march of lithium, antidepressants, and Klonopin; doctors and therapists—when health insurance allows—along with overwhelmed parents and well-intentioned friends; all helpless bystanders as Alice descends deeper into chaos.
As chilling as a psychiatric case study, as wry and precise as Flaubert, The Mind Reels peels back society's polite trappings to portray the experience of mental illness in all its complexity.
Fredrik deBoer is a writer and academic. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Playboy, and Harper’s among many others. His nonfiction books include The Cult of Smart (All Points Books, 2020) and How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement (Simon & Schuster, 2023). He holds a PhD in English with a concentration in writing assessment and higher education policy from Purdue University. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, his son Junho, and his cat Suavecito.
