Named by the NYT as one of the best 10 books of 2023, The Best Minds is a memoir and work of non-fiction on the author’s friendship with Michael Laudor and on mental illness.

Rosen and Laudor grew up as two Jewish boys together in New Rochelle, a community of intellectuals north of New York. Rosen was the son of a professor and Holocaust survivor; Laudor had a similar background. Both boys were highly intelligent, precocious and competitive, with Laudor seemingly always having the edge - Rosen was the Carraway to Laudor’s Gatsby - until a slide into paranoid delusions and schizophrenia halted Laudor’s academic career.

After an extended stay in a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital, Laudor (against all the odds) resumed his studies and took up a place in Yale Law School where he was protected and nurtured, and beginning to flourish, until a devastating crime brought everything to a sudden stop.

The book explores in much detail mental illness and the treatment of the mentally ill by successive US governments since the 1960s, in particular the “deinstitutionalisation” of mental illness - in other words, the moving away from incarceration of the mentally ill in psychiatric hospitals to the promise of community care, which never actually materialised and left those in need of care unable to access it. Leftwing idealism meets rightwing economics and the mentally ill fall through the crack in-between.

It also delves into the fashionable views of the 1960s which saw schizophrenia as a social construct, a reaction to the sickness of a capitalist society, as opposed to a genuine, genetic, psychiatric illness.

It’s a fascinating and well-written book, if a little long in parts, moving off on tangents that aren’t wholly relevant. Laudor was immensely privileged - I didn’t feel that this was truly acknowledged by the author or by Laudor - and Laudor’s privilege appeared to lend his family and those around him a misplaced belief (some might say, arrogance) that he could overcome without ongoing psychiatric intervention.

There are no easy solutions offered in the book but it’s an excellent, thought-provoking read on how the West deals with mental illness. If you enjoyed Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker, you might also enjoy this one. 4/5⭐️

*Many thanks to the author and publisher @penguinbooksuk for the arc via @netgalley. As always this is an honest review.

Powerful and thought provoking, The Best Minds is one of the most original reads we have come across this year and it was very enjoyable. It's a great one to read in book clubs as it could insight many interesting discussions.

This was beautiful but incredibly painful and haunting. After finishing the novel I still find myself thinking about it and recommending it to friends. 5 Stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

An extremely powerful and well-written memoir about friendship, rivalry and a moving account of a friend’s mental illness. Jonathan Rosen writes with the emotional connection of a close friend and the curiosity of a writer seeking to understand what happened to cause Michael Laudor’s psychotic breakdown and its tragic consequences.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I would struggle to be able to review this book due to issues with the file/download. The issues stopped the flow of the book. The issues are:
- Missing words in the middle of sentences
- Stop/start sentences on different lines
- No clear definition of chapters.

I’m not sure if it was a file/download issue but there were lots of gaps and stops/starts which really ruined the flow. I would love the chance to read a better version as the description of the book appeals to me. I would be more than happy to re-read the book with a better file or as a physical book as the book topic and genre are of interest to me. If you would like me to re-review please feel free to contact me at thesecretbookreview@gmail.com or via social media The_secret_bookreview (Instagram) or Secret_bookblog (Twitter). Thank you.

A beautifully written account of friendship. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for a review.

How can you say a book about severe mental illness is ‘a good read’. But this is a good read. The content is nostalgic, at times funny, sweet, a backward glance at a good childhood as the child of a university professor. It is the story of two boys - Jonathan and Michael - and the very very different paths their lives have taken. And the damage, distress, and death along the way.

I didn’t know the story though had a good idea how it would end. A true tragedy. A man with every opportunity and a brilliant brain who could not overcome his demons. The author, as a childhood friend, is very honest about his own issues and his own shortcomings without dominating what is a story about Michael Lauder. There’s Brad Pitt and Ron Howard and mental hospitals. The book is a tough read but an important one. Somewhere, somehow society needs to find a way to protect people - sometimes from themselves and sometimes from the ones they love.

There are many victims in this story and no easy answers.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley

This is Jonathan Rosen’s account of Michael Laudor’s story, and it’s one he has a valuable perspective on: Rosen and Laudor were best friends in late childhood and adolescence. In his early 20s after being referred to as a genius from a young age and getting a job with a prestigious financial firm, Laudor experienced hallucinations and paranoia, with sometimes-violent delusions that frightened his devoted parents. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent eight months in a psychiatric facility. With a lot of support he emerged to attend law school and became a symbol for the mentally ill everywhere - there was even going to be a film about his life. But even with all the support and help it was not enough and Michael had another psychotic break and murdered his pregnant girlfriend. This book does a great job giving information about what we fail to understand about mental illness and deinstitutionalization and how views have changed over the years. Although it is a sad book. I'm glad I read it .

When he was 10 years old, the author, Jonathan Rosen moved to New Rochelle, New York. He quickly became friends with Michael Laudor. They had some things in common. Both of their fathers were college professors and Jonathan's mother was a writer. Both had a love of literature and came from families where the expectation was that a life of the mind was a valuable thing. Both did well in school. That said, their personalities were very different and this became more of a problem as they got older, culminating in an experience on the high school newspaper that led to a more serious break. They still saw each other and were still friends, but more at a distance than they had been. When they both started at Yale, they saw each other infrequently. Michael graduated in three years and went on to a high powered consulting job. Jonathan went his own way. They ran into each other occasionally when they were both back in New Rochelle for visits. And then things went very, very wrong.

Michael ended up in the locked psychiatric ward of the hospital after a psychotic break. Upon his release, he decided to attend Yale law school, which had accepted him before his hospitalization and which he had deferred. With the help of professors and fellow students, he was able to succeed in getting his law degree. He was written up in the New York times. He sold the rights to an autobiography. Ron Howard bought the movie rights. Then things went even more wrong, with disastrous and tragic consequences.

This book is about the author's experiences as Michael's friend, Michael's experience with serious mental illness, the impact of his actions on friends and family, the research about schizophrenia, how mental illness intersects with the law, how psychiatry has changed with time, and what impact all of this has on the individuals involved, the societies in which they live, and the larger US culture. It is a devastating book, extremely well written, and one that frankly left me feeling almost stunned at times. I had known some of what the author writes about, but only in a very general way, certainly not in as much detail as is in this fine book.

Rosen is an excellent writer and I sometimes stopped to admire a sentence or paragraph. For example, in describing how Michael was as a child, and how popular he was with other kids and adults alike, he writes, "I was never surprised to find Michael chatting with my mother while she gardened, or my sister while she did homework in the kitchen. Our house was a natural extension of his, but he colonized other houses, too. He was a Goldilocks who didn't run off when the bears came home, but stayed for more porridge." (p 41) Such descriptions create images that allowed me to feel like I really understood the situations he was describing.

His ability to tell this complex story in a way that gives voice to many different ideas and perspectives is very important. The issues are difficult and in reading it, I was able to really consider some extremely difficult issues in a realistic and compassionate way. I was gripped by this book from the beginning and it's one that will stay with me for a very long time. I highly recommend it. 5 stars.

Sorry not sure I was target audience for this one. I didn’t finish as found it was quite repetitive and struggled to engage with it

Flying too near the sun : Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad

Jonathan Rosen’s autobiographical/biographical account of his own childhood, and that of his childhood friend, a brilliant boy and man, seemingly destined for great things, but who had developing, finally lethal, and devastating, psychotic mental health, is a complex read.

Overlong, somewhat repetitive and overdetailed, this book explores, and is interesting in its exploration of the history of psychiatric treatment protocols, in the latter quarter of the twentieth century. The political landscape and the changing protocols towards treatment are gone into at depth. As is the devastating fallout of financial decisions which meant that a kindlier approach to the treatment of mental health than the stigma of the old asylum system, with people institutionalised and hopeless, has not worked. Asylums have been closed in favour of community mental health programmes, created with compassion and positive commitment. The reality on the ground however, needs capital and skilled, joined up care between overlapping sectors. Instead, seriously ill people (and this is of course also true in simpler health challenges) have been tossed out of hospitals offering 24 hour care and observation, far too quickly, and thrown back into the care of family, friends and neighbours. A community without the needed resources, and, in the case of serious mental health issues, often the family, friends and communities themselves find their own health, physical, mental and emotional, cracking and straining with the challenges of managing someone, however loved, who is no longer ‘themselves’

The antipsychiatry movement of the 60’s and 70’s, however well-meaning, must bear some of the blame. Rosen draws interesting parallels with what was happening in post-modernism, and the analysis of literary fiction, by luminaries such as Derrida, and a linking with those who say in an ‘insane’ society, madness is the sane response

No one can deny that much is deeply damaged in our world, but not every person out of their ‘right mind’ whatever that is, is a seer or a shaman (which is another view – that the ‘mad’ are in touch with real wisdom.

I had some nagging ethical concerns with this book. In some ways, I might have been less concerned had this book about Michael Laudor, Rosen’s one time best friend, and the object of Rosen’s envy, sometimes resentment, as well as hero-worship, been written by a writer and journalist (as Rosen is) without a prior connection to the subject.

Laudor who had a psychotic breakdown in his twenties, shortly after graduating at the highest level, from Yale, clawed his way back to fame and fortune as an inspirer of others at the edge of lawmaking, policy and fights for societal justice for the marginalised. He was commissioned to write his autobiography which was already, even in the writing, already set to be filmed, starring Brad Pitt. Laudor seemed to be on the cusp of even greater things, and was in a settled and loving relationship with a wonderful, intelligent and compassionate woman, herself doing great work with the marginalised. Unfortunately, a far more serious breakdown, this time right in the public eye, due to Laudor’s fame, led to him committing a horrific murder, and the end of everything his life had seemed to promise

I could not help somehow feeling uneasy that Rosen will of course be profiting his career and income by this recounting. I assume that Laudor’s family, whom he was so closely associated with, from the friendship between their two families, were consulted before this book was embarked upon

This was a fascinating book that is both deeply personal but also follows the wider sociocultural events that were the backdrop to the writer’s experience. I hope the length of the book doesn’t put people off because I couldn’t put it down. One of the best non fiction books I’ve ever read.

I liked this book, not something I would usually read. I found it very sad to be honest. I thought it was a very interesting portrayal of mental illness. Overall I enjoyed the book.